


Constant

by sillypigeon



Category: All Time Low, Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Halsey (Singer), My Chemical Romance, PVRIS (Band), Panic! at the Disco, Paramore, Twenty One Pilots, of monsters and men - Fandom
Genre: Lost AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-04-09 19:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4360931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sillypigeon/pseuds/sillypigeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You expect many things from a plane crash. Injuries, coconuts, the soft sounds of ukuleles drifting over the water.<br/>But something you may not expect is your fate to be entwined with an island.<br/>Something brought them here. Something kept them trapped, away from the outside world.<br/>And it's listening.<br/>Better hope you die before you meet it.</p><p>----------------------------------------------</p><p>A LOST AU I've wanted to write for ages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dammit Ray, We're Musicians, Not Doctors.

**Author's Note:**

> I have an intense love for bandom and LOST so i thought HEY, why not combine them. If this gets enough positive feedback then i'll post more.

Josh regained consciousness with his face pressed into sand. He furrowed his brow and blinked rapidly, his brain gradually catching up with his surroundings.

Slowly, Josh’s body started aching. He was in a lot of pain but he still didn’t understand where the hell he was. He rolled over onto his back and saw the bright blue sky.

And then he heard the screaming.

There was the roaring of flames, the sound of people yelling in confusion and fear. It surrounded him and he sat up, clutching his hand to his torso when it protested.

He was on a beach. Behind him, there was scrub for a few feet, and the beyond that was forest.

He swung his head to the right and saw a pile of burning metal half in and half out of the water. It vaguely resembled the nose of an aeroplane. He looked to the left and saw a two people lying down on their backs, feet in the water. They weren’t moving.

Then it hit him. He staggered to his feet, cursing when a lance of pain shot up his right leg. He limped over to the bodies, falling to his knees next to one of them.

The woman’s hair was dyed the same blue as her face, and Josh tipped her head back, bringing his ear to her mouth. There was no sound of breath, so Josh started compressions.

“Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive,” Josh whispered to himself, using the tempo of the song to give compressions.

He paused for a moment and sealed over her mouth with his, blowing air into her lungs. He went back to her chest, continuing compressions. His mind was reeling. What the hell happened? He couldn’t remember how he got here. He pressed his mouth to the woman’s again and a voice made him glance up.

“Are you singing The Bee Gees?”

The voice came from a man with blood streaked down half his face. In the bright sun, Josh could see he had big brown eyes and a smirk plastered on his face.

“What the hell happened here?” Josh said, voice hoarse.

“Our plane crashed,” the man said, watching Josh pump the woman’s chest.

Josh’s eyes widened in surprise. A plane crash? He didn’t even remember getting on a plane. The last thing he remembered was talking on the phone with his mother. What did they talk about? Maybe he was telling her that he was getting on a flight?

Josh glared at Brown Eyes, sick of him not helping. “Don’t just stand there! Do you know how to do CPR?”

Brown Eyes shook his head.

“That’s okay, just copy what I’m doing. Tip his head back. See if he’s breathing. If not, start compressions like I am, slightly off centre.” He gestured with his head to the second body.

The body had dark hair with a patch bleached blonde and Josh was reminded of a skunk.

Brown Eyes did as he was told, the smirk gone from his lips. Josh watched as he started pumping the chest of Skunk Man.

Suddenly, the woman Josh was working on coughed up water, some of it splashing onto Josh’s face. Josh stopped compressions and put a hand under her neck and back, raising her up a little. She coughed up more water and inhaled raggedly, her fingers splaying as she filled her lungs with oxygen.

“You’re okay,” Josh said, relief flooding his system.

The girl blinked her eyes and stared at him. She tried to say something but the salt water had wrecked her voice.

“Just rest, okay? Our plane crashed but you’re okay. We’re okay.”

The girl nodded and Josh moved closer to the inert man on the sand. Brown Eyes was doing a good job with the compressions, and Josh adjusted Skunk Man’s head a little bit in the sand. Between the grunting of Brown Eyes and the screaming from the beach, Josh introduced himself.

“I’m Brendon,” Brown Eyes responded, voice tight with concentration.

Skunk Man coughed suddenly, a huge amount of water spilling from his mouth. His body convulsed like he was being sick as his lungs expelled the water. Finally, fingers digging into the sand, he inhaled, eyelids fluttering at the bliss of oxygen.

Josh sat back on his ankles, finally taking in the scene before him. Two people were running in and out of the water, pulling bodies and putting them on dry land. Josh knew he should see if they were alive but he needed to breathe for a moment.

Then he remembered that those people didn’t have the luxury, so, with a groan, he got to his feet and set out for them.

 

Patrick’s head was ringing. He hit his head on a rock when he fell from his seat and he knew there was going to be a huge lump. But other than that, he was fine. He stood on the beach, the roaring of the flames almost drowning out the ringing.

He thought he was the first person conscious (or the only person alive, but he didn’t chase that thought far) so he stumbled down to the water, calling out for his friends.

“Patrick!” someone yelled from behind him.

Andy was limping from the trees, blood on his shirt and his pants ripped. “Are you okay?”

Patrick nodded. “I hit my head pretty hard but other than a killer headache, I’m fine.”

Andy wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were fixated behind Patrick, mouth open in horror. Patrick spun around and realised what his worst nightmare was.

There were probably twenty bodies floating in the water.

They reacted at the same time, Patrick hurling himself into the water and Andy limping after him.

“Wait, Andy, don’t!” Patrick put his hand on Andy’s shoulder. “You’re limping and I don’t want you to endanger your life for someone else’s.”

Andy tried to get past him but Patrick was firm. “What should I do then?”

“See if anyone else is alive. If they’re okay, get them to come and help me.”

Andy nodded, leaving Patrick in the water. “Oh and Andy! Find someone who knows CPR!”

Patrick turned back to the water, refusing to let the horror make him shake. He ran into the waves, getting to the body of a woman with blue hair first. He rolled her over so she was facing the sky, and started pulling her from the water. When he got to shore, he pulled her far enough out so the waves were lapping at her feet and he turned around, getting straight back into the water.

After hauling a man with black and white hair from the water (this man was probably a foot taller than Patrick and it exhausted him to get him on shore), Joe appeared beside him.

“I’ve come to help. Pete’s awake but his leg is probably broken. Andy’s looking for more people,” Joe quickly filled Patrick in as they ran into the waves again.

Patrick was thankful for the help. He pulled someone else to shore, their long hair covering their face. When he made it to shore he collapsed, the ringing so loud now that he couldn’t think of anything else. Just to remain conscious, he tasked his shaking hands on brushing the hair out of the girls face. As he stared at her, he slowly began to register the sounds of terror coming from the beach. People were screaming, but at least they were alive.

“Patrick, you okay?” Joe yelled, lowering the body of a scrawny looking kid to the sand. “Take a break if you need to.”

Patrick breathed deep. “No, I’m fine.”

Before going back into the waves, he looked over and saw two people giving the first bodies compressions. The sight gave him new strength and he turned and dove into the water.

 

When Ray came to, the first thing he heard was someone screaming for help. It was weird, the way he woke up. Almost like coming back to life. There was just darkness, and then his eyes were open and he was perfectly awake.

The next thing he registered was that his hair was hanging in his face and he was upside down.

He realised he was still strapped into his plane seat. He looked next to him and saw Frank unconscious. They were about twenty feet in the air, the plane seats caught in a tree branch. Ray craned his neck and thought he could just see the yellow of a beach in the distance. He knew he needed to get there if they were going to have any chances of survival.

The ground below them looked clear of rocks or branches, so Ray formulated a plan. Not a good one, but the best he could come up with while he was hanging in a tree. He needed to unclip Frank from his seat but he didn’t want Frank falling on his head and breaking his neck.

He grabbed Frank’s hand and reached for the seat buckle. Taking a breath, he unclipped Frank’s belt and held on tight.

Frank fell from his seat and Ray jerked forward, his own belt feeling like a burn across his hips. The seats wobbled a bit and Ray clenched his eyes closed, hoping and praying that they wouldn’t fall.

After a moment, Ray prised his eyes open and looked at Frank. His head was lolling to the side and his hand felt cold in Ray’s.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Ray said before letting Frank drop.

He watched as Frank fell, landing heavily on his side. The seats in the tree branch wobbled dangerously and Ray knew he needed to bail quickly.

He unclipped his belt and plummeted to the ground. He twisted too late in the air and landed on his arm. He screamed in pain at the sky, clutching his injury to his chest.

He heard a cracking sound and looked up just in time to see the seats he used to be in slipping from the branch.

“FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!” Ray yelled as he grabbed the still unconscious Frank by the arms and dragged him away from the falling seats.

The seats slammed to the ground, followed by some leaves. And then all was silent. Ray lay back on the ground, breathing deeply.

His eyes snapped open when he heard someone calling his name.

 

“Ray!” Mikey screamed again, pressing his hand to Gerard’s wound.

When Mikey woke up, he was covered in his brother’s blood. There was a wild moment of _oh god where the hell am I what have I done_ before Mikey’s vision finally cleared enough for him to take in the forest around him. He was lying on the ground and Gerard was on a log above him, and his positioning made Mikey think that Gerard crawled towards him, and somehow that made him feel worse about the situation.

Gerard was awake when Mikey came to, and he was calling weakly for help. When he saw his brother was awake, he reached out a hand and grabbed his wrist. Then he passed out and Mikey was alone.

Mikey pulled himself to his feet and grabbed Gerard off the log to see what his injury was. Mikey felt bile rise in his throat when he saw the small branch imbedded in his brother’s shoulder.

In a panic, Mikey pulled the branch out. But then the wound started gushing blood and he realised what a mistake he’d made.

It was then he started screaming for Ray. That was ten minutes ago, and Gerard’s face was very pale and Mikey was fighting tears.

“Mikey?”

Ray burst from the undergrowth, hauling an inert Frank over his shoulder. When he saw Mikey covered in blood he stumbled and fell, dropping Frank.

“Ray,” Mikey whispered eyes wide.

“What happened here?”

Mikey started shaking. “I don’t know. I woke up here and Gerard was dripping blood on me and then he passed out and I was so scared I pulled the branch out of his shoulder and I shouldn’t have because now he’s going to bleed out.” Mikey stopped and the world tilted a little bit. He refused to pass out and started hyperventilating.

Ray grabbed his shoulders. “It’s okay. Go and check on Frank for me.”

“But Gerard –”

“I’ll take care of him. Go and see if Frank is awake yet.” Ray waited for Mikey to leave before he looked at Gerard’s wound.

He needed a doctor. He probably needed a blood transfusion. Their best hope was the beach he saw when he was in the tree. He looked over at Frank and Mikey.

Frank had woken up and propped himself up on an elbow, taking in the surroundings. “What the fuck.”

“I know. Our plane crashed and we’ve gotta head to the beach to see if there’s someone who can help Gerard. Can you walk?” Ray started lifting Gerard, wincing as pain shot up from his arm.

“Probably.” Frank took Mikey’s hand and swayed on his feet.

“Let’s go,” Ray said and they started walking through the undergrowth.

 

Out of twenty people pulled from the water, five people couldn’t be resuscitated. Josh swore if he ever had to sing The Bee Gees again he was going to rip his ears off.

All the survivors were sitting on the beach, staring out to sea. They were silent; processing what situation they were in.

Josh stood up and walked into the waves a little. There were no signs of ships on the horizon at all, and he felt fear in the pit of his stomach. He turned around and took in everyone.

“So… We’re on an island?”

“Or a peninsula,” the blonde man identified as Pete mumbled. “But I doubt that seeing as no one’s come to help us. Or maybe we’re on a peninsula of an island. Oh god.” He pressed his face into his hands and Patrick put a reassuring hand on his back.

“Where ever we are, we’re alive,” Josh amended. He was about to say something else when someone burst through the clearing, covered in blood.

“Gerard’s dying!” he said before falling over and passing out.

Everyone got up and stared as two other people came out, one of them holding someone. They collapsed on the ground and Patrick ran up to them.

“What happened here?” Patrick stared at Gerard, feeling worried about how pale he was.

“He fell on a branch apparently. Is there a doctor here?” Ray looked around at all the faces. No one stepped forward. “Well shit.”

“We could search this place and see if we can come up with something to help him?” Andy suggested. “I’m sure if we looked through the washed up bags we could find medical supplies.”

“Yes, thank you, that would be awesome.”

Andy was about to move off when the group heard a massive banging coming from somewhere in the foliage. Everyone froze, straining their ears.

It happened again, closer this time, and everyone flinched. Its tempo sped up a little and the strangest part was it sounded like a concert heard through blocked ears.

“Sick bass line, bro,” Pete muttered to himself before it stopped suddenly.

The silence was eerie and Josh shivered, wondering what the hell that noise was.

“Whatever that was, I – ” Patrick started before his body went rigid and he fall back, twitching. He was trying to speak but it was coming out as a choked whisper.

Pete was by his side instantly, holding his shoulders down so he didn’t bash his head. Pete was worried. Was this a seizure? Patrick had never mentioned this before, and Pete had never noticed. Or maybe it had something to do with hitting his head on the rock.

“What’s he saying?” Josh asked nervously, fiddling with his sleeve.

Pete leaned close and listened. “Don’t think, he cares? What does that mean?”

Patrick’s body went still and his eyes fluttered shut.

“I heard that when we were crashing,” a new voice piped up.

It was a man that Josh had resuscitated. He was skinny like a string bean, and had black tattoos on his arm that looked like bands. He blinked at all the new attention.

“Did anyone else hear it?” Pete asked.

No one else had, and Patrick regained consciousness. He stared dreamily at the sky. “He’s coming for us.”

“When, Patrick? And who is he?”

Patrick grinned. “He’s coming now.”


	2. The Beginning of George Lucas' Law Suit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind words and kudos!

Anakin Skywalker was right. Sand _does_ get everywhere. But Joe didn’t think that line truly described how irritating it was and how battered your ego became when you got sand in your ass crack.

Joe decided that once he got back to civilisation, he was going to sue George Lucas for not fully warning him.

The group of survivors was rattled by Patrick’s apparent seizure, and they had shifted away from the now sleeping Patrick. Pete sat by his inert form, staring at his broken leg in skinny jeans and regretting his choice of fashion. There was no way he was getting those off without pain.

Andy had been gone for half an hour, searching the jungle for bags and medical supplies. Gerard was still unconscious, but the bleeding had slowed slightly and Mikey (who woke up when someone splashed sea water on his face) looked exhausted.

Josh was sitting in the sand, staring at a shell in front of him. Now that the adrenalin of the crash had worn off, he felt numb. He kept reminding himself that he should be glad to be alive, but in the corner of his mind there was an overwhelming panic that was threatening to take control.

“Hey.”

Josh was jolted from his thoughts as the man with black band tattoos sat down beside him. Looking at his face, Josh felt like he’d seen this guy before. “Do I know you?” he asked bluntly.

The man blinked. “I don’t think so.” He frowned a little. “But I feel like I know you. I’m Tyler.”

Josh looked at his outstretched hand and shook it, briefly taking note of Tyler’s calloused fingers. “I’m Josh.”

“Nice to meet you, Josh.”

They were silent for a little moment, and Josh’s thoughts slipped back into worry and anxiety. His eyes drifted to the five dead bodies left near the shore. His stomach bottomed out as he realised they needed to do something about them. Especially the small one. Misery swept over him as he recalled working on the tiny body but getting no pulse. He would gladly trade his life for the childs.

Just as Josh said, “We should identify them,” Tyler said “Where’s the rest of the plane?”

They grinned at other. “You go,” Josh said.

“Wouldn’t you think that, seeing as we were in a fairly large plane, that there would be more wreckage than just the nose?”

“Huh. I haven’t even thought of that yet.”

“There could be more survivors,” Tyler suggested, refusing to say _or more dead_ out loud.

“We should go looking for them,” Josh said, trying to get to his feet.

He’d definitely done something to his leg when they crashed. He didn’t think it was broken, but there was probably going to be a hefty bruise.

 

Ever since Jack was resuscitated, he felt coldness in his bones that refused to go away. He wished he had his suitcase so he could change into dry clothes.

But he didn’t, so he resorted to lying on the sand, trying to absorb the suns rays. It was working for the most part, but sometimes a cold breeze would drift over him and he ground his teeth together.

He was trying not to think about how he hadn’t found any of his friends. Everyone else seemed to have someone they knew on the plane. But he was all alone. He was trying not to think about how Alex, Rian and Zack could be dead, how their bodies could be floating out to sea.

He just wanted to focus on getting warm again.

If he could have a drink that would be even better.

“I have to identify the bodies,” a woman said, and Jack’s eyes flashed open.

Standing in his sun was a young woman with long black hair. He remembered her from the plane. He’d wanted to ask her how she did her eyebrows like that.

He groaned as he sat up, feeling his abdominal muscles ache. Apparently hacking up seawater really took it out of you.

“Who told you to do that?” He asked after a stretch of silence.

“The tall one.” The girl responded, shoving her hands into her pockets, grimacing when she dragged seaweed out of them.

Jack frowned. There were many tall ones. He got to his feet and dusted off his jeans. The girl looked up at him and there was helplessness in her eyes that made him feel protective of her. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Yes please.” She didn’t move.

“I’m Jack.”

“Lynn.”

Jack’s eyes flicked to the side, starting to feel a bit awkward. “Let’s go identify these bodies, then?”

He started walking to the bodies, hoping that Lynn was following him. Jack stopped short when he came to the first. The only other time he’d seen a dead person was when his aunt died. And that was only for a second, on an angle, through lace that covered her open coffin.

But this dead person was directly in front of him, warmed by the sun, and no one was going to fix them if he didn’t. Jack took a breath and squatted down, studying their face.

It was a girl, probably twenty, with short hair dyed like hay. With a grimace, he slowly reached out his hand to check if she had a wallet in her pockets. With a breath of relief, he pulled out a thin purse. All it had in it was an Australian twenty-dollar note and a couple of American coins. He found a drivers licence.

Her name was Lucy.

Jack kept the ID and moved on to the next person. Same age as Lucy, male, short dark hair and probably had glasses judging by the tan on his face. It took a little while of digging around in his pockets before Jack found an ID. This guys name was Mark.

Jack heard retching and turned around to see Lynn spit on the ground. She looked queasy.

“You alright?” He called over to her.

“Yeah. No. Not really.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing.

Jack turned back to the remaining three bodies. A young girl, probably one of Mark and Lucy’s friends if Jack was correct, a short, chubby guy with a terrible hair cut, and –

Jack finally registered who else was lying there. The world tilted and he fell back, breathing picking up. He crawled away from there, breathing growing ragged.

Lynn rushed towards him, hands on his shoulders frantically asking what was the matter, why is he acting like this? She looked where Jack was pointing and fell to her knees, wailing when she saw what it was.

A small child, probably only three or four, blue in the face where it wasn’t destroyed by flames. Her eyes were stretched open in horror, the sky reflected in the glassiness.

Jack rolled over onto his hands and knees and forced himself not to hyperventilate or pass out. He vaguely heard Lynn hoarsely repeating the phrase ‘didn’t get to live, didn’t get to live’ and he pressed his hands to his ears and tried to hold back tears.

Why had no one else at the beach tried to warn Lynn of this? Why did they just leave this tiny body here in the sand? Why did no one tell people of the horror lying here?

Jack, with his world spinning, grabbed Lynn’s shoulders and told her to move up the beach. “Tell someone what we found,” he managed to say.

When she moved away, Jack’s stomach twisted and he retched in the sand.

Nothing came up. He was empty.

 

Andy had been trudging through the forest for what felt like hours. He was trying to find medical supplies for Gerard who was bleeding quite badly when he left. He didn’t want to think about how they could have fallen into the sea. At least that would explain where the rest of the plane went.

He stopped when he heard a twig snap. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the area around him.

He saw a flash of movement to his right so he bolted behind a tree to hide.

Forcing his breath to remain as quiet as possible, his mind moved faster than The Flash.

Either they were not alone in the place or Andy had just run from an animal.

He heard a noise again, closer this time, and with his mind caught between fight or flight, he stepped back around the tree, fists raised, prepared to defend himself.

The perpetrator was a person, and she was so startled when she saw him that she fell over. She had dyed yellow hair and scratches on her face.

Andy exhaled sharply and rushed forward to help her up.

“You scared the shit out of me!” the girl exclaimed, gratefully taking Andy’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” Andy said, looking over her for any more injuries. She seemed fine to him, but she looked exhausted.

“Were you on the plane? I’m Hayley.”

“Yeah, I was. I’m Andy. There are more of us at the beach.” Andy gestured with his thumb in the general direction of the beach. “Were there any survivors with you?”

“Nah. I woke up in a lake. I have no idea how I didn’t drown.”

Fresh water. Andy hadn’t found any while he was out and he was worrying about the threat of dehydration. “How far away is the lake? Can you take me?”

Hayley nodded and set off, Andy trailing behind.

“Is there someone at the beach called Jeremy or Taylor?” Hayley ducked to dodge a low hanging branch.

“I don’t know. We haven’t all introduced ourselves yet. Some more survivors arrived and one was dying so I left to find some medical supplies.”

Hayley said nothing. She was worried about her friends but she was glad she’d found other survivors.

“Here it is,” she said as they arrived at the lake.

It was fairly large, with a waterfall on the far side. Andy was instantly thinking about how to transport the water to the rest of the survivors. Then he noticed a couple of bags in a tree near the lake.

“Jackpot!” he said and moved off towards the tree. At least he wouldn’t be coming back empty handed.

Hayley watched as this man, completely covered in tattoos, climbed up the tree and slowly inched himself across the branch like a cat. He reached out and grabbed a bag, throwing to the ground below. Hayley approached the bag and opened it; half hoping it had some clothes her size. She was freezing and smelled gross because of the jungle.

It wasn’t clothes, but musical equipment. Tuners, strings, capos, you name it.

“Kinda weird that this stuff is in a suitcase like this,” Hayley muttered to herself.

“Heads up!” Andy called as he threw the second case down.

He dropped down after it, the six-foot drop not worrying him. He opened the case and grinned. It was full of medical supplies. He looked at Hayley. “I cannot believe we found this. Thank you for bringing me here.”

Hayley smiled. “No problem.” Her eyes flickered behind him and widened in horror. “Andy,” she whispered. “There’s someone behind you.”

Andy froze. He could use the suitcase as a weapon but he really needed the contents. Letting his system flood yet again with adrenalin, he turned around and saw Gerard standing in front of him.

 

Frank was the first to notice Gerard had stopped breathing. He froze, trying not to let Mikey see as he lowered his ear to Gerard’s lips. There was no sound of breath and Frank’s world shook.

“Fuck.” Frank whispered, heart beginning to race.

His whole world seemed to go in black and white as the panic set in. This might ruin him, the death of Gerard.

Mikey looked over at Frank. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Frank’s heart was in his throat. “Could you go and get Ray for me?”

Mikey could sense the panic in Frank’s voice. He frowned and moved closer. “What is it, Frank?”

“Can you just get Ray for me?” Frank realised he was shaking, trembling, about to lose his composure.

Mikey looked down at Gerard and realised. “He’s not breathing.” He looked up at Frank with tearful eyes. “Frank, he’s not breathing.”

Frank didn’t know what to say. He just stared as Mikey grabbed Gerard’s face, tears dripping down his own. He felt like this was the end for him. He’d rather have the pain of a thousand tattoos than go through this moment here with Mikey.

“Gerard!” Mikey screamed hoarsely, sniffling and sobbing. “We need to bring him back.”

People on the beach were staring. No one wanted to come over. They knew Gerard was gone. He had to be, after losing so much blood. There was no blood for his heard to pump.

“Frank!” Mikey screamed at Frank’s face. “Help! Somebody help!” He screamed raggedly.

Frank blinked, feeling his own tears fall down his face. “Mikey…”

But Mikey wasn’t paying attention. He was starting compressions on Gerard’s chest, his tears falling on the older Way’s face.

“Mikey,” Frank whispered, weakly placing a hand on Mikey’s shoulder. “Let him sleep, let him be.”

“No!” Mikey snarled. “He can’t leave. He wouldn’t leave me.”

Frank sat back, pressing a hand to his shaking mouth. There was roaring in his ears and his world was vibrating. Somehow he saw Ray rush over, a point of clarity in this blurry world. He was shouting at Mikey, trying to pull him away. He turned to Frank, and when he grabbed his shoulders, Frank’s world returned to him.

“Andy’s back with medical equipment.” Ray’s words sounded slightly muffled.

Frank looked up and saw Andy standing there, bag in hand, staring wide eyed at the scene in front of him. “He’s dead,” Frank whispered.

“I know that. Frank. Take Mikey away. Can you do that for me?”

Frank nodded. He rose to his feet and grabbed Mikey’s arm. Mikey howled, trying to shake free but Frank held on. He pulled and pulled, dragging at Mikey until he stopped resisting. He sobbed as Frank pulled him away, screaming for his dead brother.  

Frank was staring at Ray and Andy as they moved frantically around Gerard’s body.. They tipped his head back and poured something in his mouth. They started compressions and then Frank couldn’t see anymore, eyes filled with tears.

He dropped to his knees in front of Mikey’s heaving shoulders.

“It’s going to be okay,” Frank whispered.

He didn’t even believe himself.


	3. Lick That Hand and Stick It In a Ziplock Bag Of Lynn Gunn You Mad Animal

Everything was drained of colour. The trees were a slightly darker grey than the sky behind them, and it took a while for Gerard to differentiate between the two.

He felt it when his heart stopped.

It felt like he was falling from a great height, but when he got close to the ground, his velocity slowed and he was almost gently placed on the forest floor.

He took a breath and heard it echo around him. As he sat up, he noticed his entire world was grey scale. He looked down at himself and saw he was black and white too.

“Don’t tell me I’m a Goth now,” Gerard murmured, getting to his feet.

His world felt strange. He felt like he weighed nothing, and as he walked forward a little, he didn’t feel the leaves and branches break underneath his foot.

He tried to recall how he got to this place. He remembered a dim moment of pain and blood and Mikey unconscious below him before everything went grey.

And before that? Nothing. He knew he was on a plane (he remembered laughing with Frank about the sick bags being called ‘sick sacks’) before his medicine kicked in and everything went fluffy.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices. Gerard walked straight for them, using his hand to move a fern out of his face.

In a small clearing he saw a woman with blue hair (he guessed the colour from the shade of grey) chatting to someone with dark hair.

“Hi,” Gerard began awkwardly.

They spun around and stared. “What are you doing here?” The dark haired girl said.

Gerard noticed she had a massive hole in her shirt over her stomach. “I fell, I think. I mean, my plane crashed.” Gerard stopped about six feet from the girls.

The dark haired girl traded looks with the other. “Have you always been grey?”

Gerard frowned. “No?”

“When was the last time you remember seeing colour?” The blue haired girl spoke for the first time.

“It was just after we crashed. I was with my brother but the colour went away and now I’m here.” He glanced between the two. “Is everything in black and white for you too?”

“Yeah.”

“Why is that? Did we get hit on the head or something?” Gerard laughed a little bit, trying to ease the tension in the air.

“Nope. We’re dead,” the dark haired girl said.

Gerard’s laughter stuttered to a stop. “Dead…?” His mind started spinning. He couldn’t be dead. He was having a conversation.

“Yep. That’s why the colour is gone from everything. Dead as a doornail. Dead!” The blue haired girl grinned before pressing her face into her hands inhaling raggedly.

“Who are you?” Gerard whispered, taking a few steps back from them. “Why are you telling me this?”

The blue haired girl reached out, eyes welling with tears. “Because we need help.”

The dark haired girl glared at the other girl. “Don’t say it, Halsey.”

“Why not? He could help us!”

“Yeah, and he could also be working with him!”

The girl apparently named Halsey shook her head furiously. “Lynn, if he is, just let it fucking happen. I’m sick of being scared all the time.”

“Who are you talking about?” Gerard whispered, breathing picking up.

Lynn turned and glared at him. “Like you don’t know.”

“I really don’t so just please tell me.”

Lynn stepped forward and maintained eye contact with Gerard, almost daring him to be a traitor. “His name is Tyler. And he’s trying to kill everyone on the goddamn island.”

“Who is Tyler? Did he crash with us?”

Lynn narrowed her eyes at him. Then she visibly relaxed, exhaling heavily. “He’s safe. I’m sure of it.”

Gerard was getting frustrated. “Can someone PLEASE just tell me what the hell is going on here?”

“We’ll explain on the way.” Lyn started walking through the undergrowth, and Gerard had no option but to follow her.

“As far as we know, the reason everything is in black and white is because we’re dead. Like ghosts, of sorts.” Lynn turned back to check Gerard was following.

“How can you know for certain that you’re dead?” Gerard was still looking for a sane explanation of what was happening to him.

“Tyler told us.” Halsey cringed, a memory sending shivers down her spine.

“Time works differently here,” Lynn explained, coming to a halt before a large clearing. She turned to Gerard. “The plane survivors have been here for five hours, but Halsey and I have been in this grey world for nine.” She watched the confusion register on Gerard’s face before continuing. “I don’t know why time is going slower, but it’s bad news for the survivors.”

“Who is Tyler?”

“He was the first person to die. He is pure, undiluted evil. I’d say you better hope you die before you meet him, but there’s no escaping it now.” Lynn turned her attention back to the clearing. “This is what I want to show you.”

They pushed past the ferns and approach a lake. Halsey frowned and glanced around the area. “She was here a moment ago.”

“Who are you talking about now?” Gerard scanned the area too, half looking for his brother, half being wary of this Tyler person he’d been warned about.

“She was drowned in the lake. I don’t know what her name was. But we brought her back to life.” Lynn’s head snapped to attention when they heard voices. “There she is!”

Gerard looked where she was pointing and saw, with great surprise, that two people were walking across the clearing, both in screaming colour. One of them, a woman, had bright yellow hair and Gerard thought it was amazing. The other, a man completely covered with tattoos, was another point of bright colour in this grey world.

While it was incredible to see the brilliance of their colour, Gerard shrunk back behind a tree so they couldn’t see him. He didn’t know why, he just felt like he needed to hide from them.

“They can’t see us, you know,” Lynn said.

Gerard peeked his head around the tree and watched the people.

“Jackpot!” the man said and rushed forward to a tree. He started climbing it as the woman stood and watched.

Gerard walked out from behind the tree and stood next to Halsey, who was watching with great interest as the yellow haired woman zipped open a bag that had been tossed to the ground.

“Why are they in colour?” Gerard asked, voice in awe.

“Everyone who is alive has colour,” Halsey explained. “That’s why Tyler wants to kill them. Why should they have colour while we’re forced to ‘live’ in black and white? That’s his reasoning, anyway.”

“How does he have such hatred for the survivors when you’ve only been here for nine hours?” Gerard thought he saw the yellow haired woman tilted her ear towards where he was standing. But she couldn’t have heard him speak, so he must have imagined it.

“What ever the hell Tyler is, he festered in a short period of time to become this… disgustingly evil creature. It seems that he’s just pure hatred.”

Gerard was about to ask what Tyler had done to them for them to be so sure of his evilness, when he saw the yellow haired woman staring at him. It was unnerving to say the least.

“There’s someone behind you,” she whispered to the man, and he slowly turned around.

“Gerard?” he asked.

“What the fuck, he can SEE YOU?” Lynn cried out as Gerard stared at the man.

“You can see me?”

“How did you get here? I thought you were unconscious on the beach!” The man stood up straight in shock.

“I woke up in the forest,” Gerard explained. “Then I found Halsey and Lynn – ”

“Do you mean Lynn Gunn and Halsey as in Ashley?” Andy tilted his head at Gerard.

“How do you know my last name?” Lynn asked the man.

He didn’t respond. He was still staring at Gerard, waiting for him to answer the previous question. “Gerard?”

“Lynn asked you a question,” Gerard responded.

The people in colour froze. “Gerard, there’s no one here. It’s just Andy, me, and you,” the woman said. She looked him up and down. “And now that I think about it, you’re in black and white.” She turned to the man identified as Andy. “What the hell is going on here?”

“I have no idea, Hayley,” Andy responded, studying Gerard.

They were all silent for a moment, and Gerard connected the dots in his head. “The Gerard – the _me_ – on the beach is dead.”

“How do you know that?” Andy responded.

Gerard glanced at Lynn. “Because… the only reason I can be here, in black and white, is if I died.”

Hayley scrunched up her face. “No way, there has to be a better explanation for this.”

“Still doesn’t explain why they can see you and not us,” Halsey murmured.

Gerard opened his mouth to respond when there was an enormous explosion of sound about one hundred feet from where they were standing. Halsey and Lynn flinched and started running but stopped and glanced at Gerard.

“Gerard we have to run. That’s Tyler.” Lynn yelled, taking small steps away from the sound.

“Did you hear that?” Gerard looked at Andy, who looked about as scared as Lynn and Halsey did. “Lynn’s telling us to run and I think that includes you.” Gerard registered Lynn screaming at him again. “You’re on the beach right?”

Andy nodded. “I think it’s towards the north of the island.”

“I’ll find you. Run!”

Hayley and Andy bolted and Gerard turned around and followed the girls, realising the noise sounded like a bass guitar being played far too loudly.

As they continued to run, Gerard heard the noise again, and a shiver of fear went down his spine.

They ran for a long time, not stopping even when they couldn’t hear the bass anymore.

Lynn and Halsey weren’t out of breath, but Gerard had to stop and lean against a tree to catch his breath.

Halsey watched as Gerard stood there. “What is he?” she whispered to Lynn, who shook her head.

“He’s not one of us, that’s for sure. And he’s not one of them, either.”

Halsey pursed her lips. “We can’t let Tyler see. He wouldn’t like that at all.”

Gerard wiped some sweat from his brow. “How the hell am I out of breath when I’m dead and don’t even need breath?” He glanced at Lynn. “What the hell did Tyler do to you?”

Lynn sat down on a log and took a breath. “It happened when we died.”

 

Lynn was falling and then she wasn’t. Then she was falling again and no matter how much she grabbed at the trees around her, she kept plummeting to the ground.

She felt like she was going to be sick.

When the world finally stopped tilting, she was lying with her back against a tree trunk. Her head was spinning but she saw that the world around her was in black and white.

She heard someone calling for help and followed the sound, hoping to find a friendly face in this strange world.

When she found the source of the noise, she was taken aback. A man was sitting on a fallen tree, watching her approach.

“Are you okay?” Lynn asked hesitantly.

The man on the log seemed to sway back and forth on his seat, grinning unnervingly as he continued to stare. “We have to kill the survivors. They took all the colour in the world and now we have none.” And then he disappeared.

Lynn blinked, glancing around her for any sight of this strange man. Then, the piercing sound of a woman screaming rang through the forest, and Lynn was running before she knew what was happening.

Stumbling through the undergrowth, she found the strange man straddling a woman and slashing at her face with his fingers. The woman was screaming and trying to defend herself, but the man was ruthless.

“What the fuck?” Lynn cried and rushed forward, grabbing the man off the woman. “What the hell are you doing?”

“The blood!” the man shrieked, holding up his grey soaked fingers to show Lynn. “Not even the blood has colour!”

He dragged his fingers down his face, leaving almost black streaks of grey blood on his cheeks. “This is their fault! We have to get the colour back!” He started licking his hands, tasting the blood they were covered with.

Lynn staggered back a step, mouth open in horror. She glanced down at the woman on the ground, who was crawling back on her hands and knees. Lynn tried to help her up, and before she knew what hit her, the man was leaping at her, tearing open her shirt and then tearing open her stomach.

Lynn screamed, thrashing as he howled along with her, dipping his fingers into her torso and flinging her grey blood about the place.

The first girl who was attacked grabbed a large branch and hit him over the head with it. He fell back, writhing on the ground.

Lynn shakily got to her feet, clutching her hands to her stomach in a desperate attempt in keeping her internal organs internal. She was shaking so hard out of terror and shock as she backed away from the man.

“Who the hell are you?” the other woman screamed, brandishing the branch like a spear.

“I was the first one to die! I’m Tyler! No I’m not, not anymore! I care, I CARE!” He screamed again, the sound so guttural Lynn felt like she should kick him just to get the noise to stop.

The other girl charged forward and stabbed the branch into his chest. She groaned as she pushed with all her might, trying to stab the thing right through him and into the ground. At least then they might have time to get away.

As soon as she did that, Tyler opened his mouth and emitted a sound that was comparable to a bass being played way too loud. He was staring right at them as he did so, and Lynn and the other girl ran as fast as they could.

They ran until they couldn’t hear it anymore. Lynn collapsed, hands flying away from her stomach to break her fall. She realised she wasn’t protecting her organs anymore and, with trembling fingers, she reached back and felt that her skin was completely healed. She glanced down in disbelief, seeing the smooth skin where there used to be a gaping hole.

It was then that she finally threw up.

The other woman held her hair back until she was done. “What is happening to us?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Lynn responded, head in her hands.

She was looking at the hole in her shirt, the only reminder of what horror had happened to her just a few minutes ago. “Who the fuck was that man?”

“Did he say his name was Tyler?”

“I think so.” Lynn looked at the other woman. “I’m Lynn.”

“Halsey.”

“Well, Halsey, I don’t mean to sound rude, but I wish we’d never met.”

Both girls laughed quietly, the tension lifted slightly. Halsey felt like her face was shaking and she finally noticed how much grey was on her shirt from where Tyler had ripped away at her face.

“We need to get cleaned up.” She stood up and offered Lynn a hand.

They walked for another half hour until they finally found a lake. They dove right in, feeling the cold, but not feeling wet. It was surreal.

Then Halsey saw a body in the water. She and Lynn dragged the person out and started compressions. As soon as the woman coughed to life, she suddenly flickered into colour. Her hair was yellow and she was wearing a bright pink shirt.

But the strange thing was the woman didn’t see Lynn and Halsey. It was like they were ghosts.

 

“Halsey was the one to piece it all together,” Lynn finished, taking in Gerard’s horrified face.

“He ripped you open?” Gerard repeated in a hollow voice. “He’s insane.”

“Yep.” Lynn fiddled with the hem of her shirt, feeling irritated with the hole there. “At least the good thing about being dead is that you can’t die.”

“There must be some other reason why he’d be like that. He can’t just be so upset about the colour.” Gerard pressed his fingers to his chin and pondered something terrifying.

They were silent for a long while, all of them staring at a patch of ground in front of them.

“We should go to the beach,” Halsey said.

“I could see Mikey,” Gerard said as he stood up.

“Do you think that’ll be a good idea?” Lynn asked as they set off in a direction they hoped was north. “I mean, his brother has just died.”

“I _am_ his brother.”

“I know you are, but to him, you’re a dude in black and white who has just appeared randomly out of the forest.”

Lynn made a good point. Gerard didn’t know what to say.

It took a very long time to get to the beach. Probably an hour of non-stop walking. Gerard felt exhausted but Lynn and Halsey didn’t look tired at all.

There was no one on the beach, but that didn’t mean it was empty.

The entire plane wreckage was lying in the sand. It was torn apart, set on fire, and strewn about the place. It was a mess.

“Where are all the people?” Halsey wondered out loud.

As they all swept the beach, they came across the luggage. With a cry of happiness, Lynn dug through it until she came across her bag. She changed her shirt right there, not giving a shit about who saw. It felt good to not be reminded of what she’d been through. She’d try her best to completely forget about it.

Gerard was still sweeping the beach, trying in vain to find Mikey. He was turning back around to return to the others when he finally saw it.

“Uh, guys? Come and look at this.”

Written on the side of the plane facing the ocean, were the words ‘I’m coming for them’.

“Oh no,” Halsey whispered.

Gerard swallowed. “We have to find the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops


	4. Mile High Shit Club

Dallon was 90% sure something suspicious was happening on the island.

First of all, where were all their bags? How could a plane crash and miraculously deposit them on the beach without any kind of bags falling through?

Second of all, where was the wreckage of the plane? It didn’t make sense that the only reminder of the plane was the nose.

And third of all, Dallon knew they needed to take stock of who was alive, who had injuries, and who was dead.

He was sitting on a log on the no mans land between the forest and the beach. With his face pressed into his palm, he watched as the other survivors sat around and stared out to sea or walked around in groups, chatting. He looked further down the beach, seeing Mikey sitting alone.

Dallon felt a pang of sadness, remembering how much Mikey had cried when his brother died. It took a while for them for pull him away from Gerard’s body, and when they did, Mikey moved down the beach. He’d been there for a while.

They were never going to get rescued at this rate. He considered standing up, but truth be told, he was exhausted from the crash. He was awake the whole time, and he saw it when the plane broke apart and the screaming, oh _god,_ the screaming.

He closed his eyes, trying to stop the memory from coming all the way.

“You’re Dallon, right?”

Dallon nodded, eyes still closed. He didn’t bother looking up at the person who spoke. He was still trying to forget the sound the plane made when it burst into flames.

“I was wondering if you could help me with something,” the voice said.

Dallon pried his eyes open and looked at the person standing there. The man had intense blue eyes that were slightly unnerving. Dallon got to his feet slowly, groaning when his joints popped. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Spencer.” He stuck out his hand.

Dallon grinned as he shook Spencer’s hand. They may be on a deserted island but formalities are a must. “What can I help with, Spencer?”

Spencer gestured for Dallon to follow him. “We need to move the bodies. They’re getting pretty ripe out here in the sun.”

Dallon winced. Are we going to have a funeral of some sort?”

“I’m not sure what to do. If we get rescued then the families will want their loved ones back. But if we don’t…” Spencer let his voice trail off.

Dallon thought for a bit. “I think we need to have a group meeting. Find out who we have here, who needs to be looked after, and if anyone knows how to build a signal fire of some kind.”

“Good idea.”

It took about ten minutes, but Dallon and Spencer managed to get everyone together.

All up, there were twenty-seven survivors. Dallon and Spencer stood before them, waiting for everyone to get seated.

Dallon cleared his throat. “This is Spencer, and I’m Dallon.”

Someone sarcastically said ‘Hi Dallon’ like they were in AA or something.

“I’ll just get straight to the point.” Spencer stepped forward a little. “We need to start a signal fire so we can be rescued. Does anyone know how to start a fire?”

There was some murmuring and a lot of shaking of heads.

Spencer closed his eyes briefly. How the hell did no one know how to start a fire? “Moving on, then. I think it’s important that we all introduce our selves. It’s worthwhile knowing everyone’s names because – ” he pointed at the setting sun. “I think we might be here for a while.”

The voices rose again, and Andy stood up and called for attention. “Hayley took me to a place where there’s fresh water, so at least we won’t die of dehydration.” He looked at Hayley, who nodded her head slightly. He glanced over at Mikey’s figure in the distance. He had refused to come to this meeting. “And… when we were there… we saw Gerard.”

The rest of the group coughed out laughs. Someone told him to stop telling sick jokes.

“It’s true!” Hayley stood up, coming to Andy’s defence. “I was there. He talked to us. And he was in black and white, which I wish was the weirdest part of this whole thing.”

Dallon pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean you saw Gerard? He’s dead.”

“I know that,” Andy said, frustration leaking into his voice. “But I know what I saw. He spoke to us. He said he was with Lynn and Halsey.”

Both girls who were mentioned frowned and looked at each other.

“And then,” Andy continued, not letting anyone else jump in. “He told us that the Gerard on the beach was dead.” Andy shook his head. “If I am making this up, how could I know that? When I left the beach, Gerard was alive and I _thought_ he was going to survive.”

“Something is going on here on this island. We didn’t imagine Gerard. He was actually there.” Hayley piped up. “And he knows something we don’t. He _knew_ he was dead. I never saw Gerard alive so how could this be a hallucination if I’ve never met him?”

They were all silent as they pondered this.

“I agree with you when you say something’s going on here.” Dallon drew the attention back to him. “Where is the rest of the plane? Granted, some of it could have sunk in the water, but the entirety of it? And where’s all the bags?”

“There was wreckage in the forest.” A man spoke up, flashing Dallon the tattoos on his hands. “That’s where Spencer and I were, anyway.”

“We have to work together now. We need to find a way to bring water from the lake Hayley found. We need to find food. But I think the priority should be making a fire because sitting out here on a beach in the dark doesn’t sound like fun to me.” Dallon watched the group as this sunk in.

“Can everyone go and collect some wood they think will burn?” Spencer asked, hearing some grumbles as people complained about having to tramp around in the forest.

Spencer waited for everyone to stand up before approaching Hayley and Andy. “Can I talk to you guys for a sec?”

They moved away from the rest of the group, walking past Dallon who joined them.

“Could you take us to where you saw Gerard?”

Andy scoffed at Spencer. “So you believe us?”

Spencer threw a glance at Dallon. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.” He paused. “But ever since we got here, I always feel like I’m being watched.”

Dallon kept looking at the sand. He had that feeling, too. He’d even heard something moving behind him.

“Do you want to go now or tomorrow?” Hayley asked, noticing how close to the horizon the sun was. “I think we’ve only got about two hours of light left.”

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Dallon responded, shoving his hands into his pockets. “People would ask questions if we left now.”

Hayley laughed lightly. “No matter what happens, they’re going to ask questions. Every time we discover something, it raises more questions then answers.”

“It might work if we disguise it as a water run,” Spencer suggested. “Which isn’t really a lie. We really do need to get water for the group.”

“Okay. It’s decided. We’ll meet up tomorrow and set off.” Dallon was about to move away when he ran into someone.

He looked down and saw Patrick standing there. He was filthy (honestly, they all were, but there was a kind of filth about Patrick that made Dallon think he had been running through the forest) and was leaning on a stick.

“I’m coming too.”

Dallon closed his eyes briefly. How much had Patrick heard? He was hiding behind Dallon’s tall form so no wonder no one else saw him. “You don’t look well, Patrick.”

“Why do you want to come?” Spencer asked.

“Because I know who Gerard ran from.”

“Really.” Dallon’s voice was soaked with criticism.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, staring Dallon in the eye. It was unnerving, to say the least.

“Who is it, then?” Dallon subtly took a step back from Patrick. He felt on edge around him.

Patrick flicked some sand from his staff. “It’s Tyler.”

 

When Alex woke up, his world was spinning. He didn’t know where he was or how long he’d been unconscious, but he knew he was going to throw up if he couldn’t get a hold of something.

Gasping, he reached out a hand and grabbed that felt like plastic. For some reason, as soon as he had an anchor, his brain stopped spinning and he could open his eyes.

It was dark, but there was a streak of dark blue in the wall of black. Alex rolled onto his stomach and crawled forward a little, reaching up with one hand to push at what he hoped was a slightly cracked door. He grunted as he pushed on it and finally, it fell open.

He had to stop himself tumbling out as the door opened. When he registered what he was seeing, he had to fight to keep his stomach contents in his stomach.

He was so high above the tree canopy that he swore he could feel the wind gently moving his tree house.

He edged away from the opening, fear clutching his heart. He was starting to hyperventilate but couldn’t muster the strength to stop himself.

After a moment of this, he forced himself to open his eyes and study his surroundings. His vision was going blurry from hyperventilating but he refused to lose consciousness again. He focussed on the object in front of him. It looked like a toilet.

And then he remembered.

The crash.

The screaming.

The fear of _oh god I’m going to die in a fucking toilet why do shitty things happen to me_.

Thank god he’d flushed just as the plane started falling from the sky.

“Zack! Jack!” he yelled through breaths, finally managing to steady his breathing. “Rian!”

He paused for a moment, hoping to hear an answer. The wind was blowing but he thought he could hear someone shouting. Feeling his stomach turn again, he slowly looked out the door and shouted again.

“Alex!”

Yes, he definitely heard it. “Hello!”

“I’m down here!”

Alex dug his fingers into his thigh and forced himself to look down. Several branches below him was a blue plane seat with Rian still strapped into it. He was facing the sky in his seat, squinting at the sun stabbing his eyes. Alex barked out a laugh. “Rian?”

Rian ginned back. “Can I use the restroom after you?”

“Fuck,” Alex breathed. “What the hell happened?”

“Our plane crashed. I’d love to tell you more when we get onto the ground.” Rian unclipped his belt and gingerly stood up on his seat.

Alex felt wobbly just watching him. “How do you suggest I get down?”

Rian pondered this for a moment. He pointed at a branch about seven feet below Alex. “Can you get down onto that?”

“What if this shit house falls and we both die a terrible death?” Alex muttered to himself. “Didn’t they do this on JackAss once?”

“What?” Rian called up.

“Nothing.”

Alex stared at the branch he was to aim for. He paused. “Rian, I feel like I don’t tell you enough how much I appreciate you and –”

Rian rolled his eyes. “Quit stalling, Gaskarth. Just jump already. You’ll be fine.”

Alex started shifting himself slowly out of the cubicle. “Why the hell did I waste my life in this good for nothing band.” He stuck one foot out and rolled onto his stomach. “What the hell was the first album, anyway?” He slowly inched himself out, gripping an edge of the toilet. “What does ‘Future Hearts’ even mean?” His legs were dangling out and he felt the cubicle wobbling dangerously.

Rian’s eyes widened. “Drop down now!”

“Nah.” Alex just dangled there. He felt his fingers slipping off the toilet so he looked down and tried to angle his feet for either side of the branch.

He released his fingers and for the second of him falling, he swore he heard a bass being played. Weird stuff.

He slammed onto the branch and clung onto it for dear life. With his eyes squeezed shut, he heard the toilet cubicle groan from the sudden weight loss and then became silent. Alex gradually opened his eyes and heard Rian cheering.

Alex shuffled along the branch and clung to the tree. He took a few deep breaths before climbing down.

When he made it to Rian, he grinned. “Let’s go down.”

Rian took a quick glance down and paled considerably. “Actually…”

“Ah ah ah,” Alex tutted. He grabbed Rians wrist. “We go together or we don’t go down at all.”

“First of all, sick reference bro.” Rian reached forward and grabbed the shaft of the tree. “And second of all, shut the fuck up.”

Alex laughed and continued climbing down the tree, Rian following him.

 

Approximately one mile west of them, Zack lay pinned under a tree. He was struggling to breathe under the weight of it and the pounding in his head was unbelievable.

He thought he heard a bass being played way too loudly, but it could have been a trick of his mind. He heard it again and turned his head as much as he could and saw a man standing there.

Zack could swear that this man was making the bass noise.

The man waked forward and crouched over Zack’s head. “We’re gonna have some fun with you.”


	5. Ghosts™

In the end, it hadn’t taken the survivors on the beach very long to start a fire. As the sun finally set, everyone (except Mikey) were sitting around it. Pretty much everyone regretted not eating the crappy aeroplane food before they crashed.

Pete, Ray, Andy, and Jack were sitting together, trying to figure out how the plane had crashed.

Josh watched from a few feet away, listening to them talk.

“Did you feel any turbulence?”

“What if we were blown off track?”

“The authorities won’t know where to look for us.”

“What if we’re not alone on the island?”

“There was a show on TV like this but I never watched it.”

“Neither. I really wish I had, though.”

Josh’s eyes flickered to Dallon, who was staring into the fire unblinkingly. There was a haunted look on his face and Josh thought that he might know something.

“Do you remember the crash, Dallon?” Josh asked before he talked himself out of it.

Dallon blinked hard and looked at Josh. He nodded minutely. The light of the fire made him look gaunt and exhausted. “I remember the whole thing.”

Lynn looked at Dallon with soft eyes. “Can you tell us?”

Dallon briefly closed his eyes. “There was turbulence. The pilot didn’t even have time to warn us.”

Everyone piped down, intently listening to Dallon’s hushed whisper.

Brendon shifted a bit closer to Dallon. “Did someone tamper with the plane?”

Dallon’s adams apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Not really.” His eyes flickered to Tyler almost unnoticeably, but Josh caught the movement.

Josh glanced at Tyler. He was staring at the sand, legs pressed to his chest and arms wrapped around them. He looked terrified.

“When the plane started dropping from the air, I heard this tearing sound and I knew the end of the plane had dropped off.” Dallon sunk his hands into the sand. “I turned around in my chair and saw the sky and clouds rushing past. And then I saw someone in a seat behind staring at me. Their eyes were red.”

Tyler closed his eyes and tried to refrain from crying out.

“What the fuck?” Pete cried. “Red eyes? Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Dallon glanced at Tyler again. “It was him.”

Everyone’s gaze followed Dallon’s pointing finger to rest on Tyler.

“Are you sure?” Josh found himself asking. He pretended not to notice the animalistic fear in Tyler’s eyes.

“I’m never going to forget those eyes.” Dallon stood firm.

There was murmuring around the fire as people tried to think of a reasonable explanation. They were all fixated on Tyler who looked like he could bolt at any minute.

“When I passed out,” Patrick began, effectively drawing all attention away from Tyler. “I saw Tyler with red eyes, too. He’s the one who told me to say those things.”

“Stop it!” Tyler said, standing up abruptly. “It’s so easy for you all to gang up on me. Who have I got to defend me? I fucking _died_ and have no memory of even getting on the plane.” He glared at Dallon. “Everyone is here with someone they know. There are already ranks drawn. I’m alone, here. I don’t have any friends.”

“Okay, Mr Defensive, we never said we believed them,” Joe said, hands raised in a peacemaking way.

“You’re not the only one who’s alone,” Jack jumped in. “I’m missing three of my friends.”

“Alex and Brian are gone,” Lynn added.

“Some guy called Bob that I knew is gone but honestly, good riddance,” Frank said with a laugh and Ray nodded in agreement.

“Kenny,” is all Brendon said.

“But what Tyler says is the truth,” Josh spoke over the rising chatter. He wondered where this social anxiety went. “And what Joe says is right as well.” Everyone fell silent. “Look, we’re here on an island God knows where. The last thing we need to do is create lines on the first day here.”

Tyler had had enough. He walked away from the group. He knew exactly what happened on the plane but he didn’t want to say.

He was terrified of what he was capable of.

 

Mikey had been staring out to sea for hours. It was easier to concentrate on the ebb and flow of the ocean than to try to remember what the last thing he said to his brother was.

What colour were Gerard’s eyes?

Where did the top of his head come up to on Mikey?

Why are these small details slipping from his mind?

Mikey was cold and tired and he wanted to come over to the fire he could smell, but that would mean coming closer to Gerard’s body. The last thing he wanted was to crumble like that in front of Frank again, in front of _everyone_.

He sighed and tried to burry his chin in his flimsy sweater. It really wasn’t doing the job of keeping him warm but he couldn’t physically force himself to stand. Granted, that may have been partly the cold freezing his joints, but he also believed it was the grief.

“Can I sit with you?”

His heart almost stopped when a soft voice called out of the shadows. He looked up and saw a skinny man with black tattoos standing there awkwardly.

Tyler didn’t give Mikey a chance to say no as he sat down, leaving a foot of space between them.

After a moment of silence, Tyler spoke. “How are you?”

Mikey noticed Tyler’s voice was gentle and calming, but he couldn’t help bristling. “How do you think I’m doing? We’re crashed on an island god knows where, my brother is dead, and I’m so fucking cold I might become the next Captain America.”

Tyler didn’t miss a beat. “You’re tired, cold, and grieving but you shouldn’t be sitting out here by yourself.”

Mikey wasn’t expecting that. He was almost bristling for a fight before, his body begging to do anything with this mix of feelings inside him. “Who are you to tell me that?”

“I know grief. Ever since we got here, it’s like,” Tyler picked his words carefully. “It’s like I’m grieving for myself. Like a part of me died when we came here.”

Mikey gave Tyler’s profile a long look. “And how are you dealing with that?” His voice was almost sarcastic.

If Tyler detected it, he didn’t let on. “I’ve dealt with it before.” He huffed out a laugh. “Many times before, actually. Previously, I turned to friends to help. But I don’t have that here.” He finally returned Mikey’s gaze. “So now I’m trying to be self sufficient.”

For some reason, Mikey felt his eyes burning for tears. It suddenly occurred to him that he had friends like brothers here on the island with him. They would be going through the same thing. “I should go to my friends,” Mikey whispered. He paused. “Is Gerard…”

“He’s moved out of the way.”

“Thank you.” Mikey made to get up but then stopped. “Have we met before?”

Tyler’s face paled. “No. We have not.”

Mikey shrugged and stood up, his joints cracking audibly. He brushed off the pants and left Tyler sitting there by himself.

Tyler watched him leave. “Not this time, anyway,” Tyler whispered to no one in particular.

 

Halsey was trying to find a place to pee. It was all well and good for the men – they could stand – but for the three girls (Halsey wondered why there were predominantly men) here, they had to find a suitable bush to squat behind. Then you had to carefully try not to get pee on your clothes and then try not to cry when you remembered there was no toilet paper.

It was so dark inside the trees. Halsey could see the fire from where she was, see the dark shapes of people siting around it, but for some reason, the light didn’t seem to travel inside the forest.

It was almost like it was too afraid to come in.

Halsey got the feeling of being watched, and she glanced over her shoulder, unable to make anything out in the darkness. She hurried up her business and stood quickly, pulling down her skirt. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and she spun around, breathing heavy. She didn’t have any kind of weapon to defend herself, and she doubted the people on the beach would hear her scream over the crackling of the fire.

She suddenly saw something. It was like a little grey blob growing closer. She squinted as it approached, too intrigued to move away. It reminded her of that part in the X-Files intro when that weird waving silhouette fell into the handprint.

As it came closer she began to make out details. With a gasp, she realised it was a person, except their colour was drained.

This is what Hayley and Andy were talking about.

The person stopped in front of Halsey, panting. “This forest is haunted,” they got out between breaths.

 

“All I’m saying is, if a phone starts acting all weird and hanging up calls by itself, then there’s a fair chance it’s haunted.”

“Would you stop saying things are haunted, Gerard!” Lynn cried out in frustration. She looked over at Halsey for back up but she wasn’t listening.

“I’m running right through this tree like it’s not there!” Halsey exclaimed.

“Look, that’s good and all, but why are we running when we could just… leisurely stroll,” Gerard said, huffing. His cardio was not up to the task of running in the forest for hours on end.

“We can have a break, if you really want, but the more time we sit around, the closer Tyler could be getting to _your_ brother.” Lynn said, watching at Gerard just plonked himself on the forest floor. “Don’t forget the reason we’re running.”

“I could never.” Gerard closed his eyes and turned his face up to the sky, trying to steady his breathing.

Halsey sauntered around, occasionally sticking her hand through a tree. “This is actually so cool!” she cried, clapping her hands together. “I could run up Mount Everest!”

“Has it occurred to you that if you can move through trees, you might just move through the ground?” Lynn had to be the ultimate killjoy.

Halsey gave her the finger. “At least I couldn’t die. I’d finally meet our lizard ancestors.”

“What?” Lynn frowned.

“You ever watched Doctor Who?” Halsey feigned shock when Lynn shook her head. “Okay so, beneath our feet is a whole lizard population that existed since the dinosaurs, or was it after the dinosaurs?” Halsey paused to ponder the timeline.

“There’s someone over there,” Gerard interrupted. He’d opened his eyes and seen a flash of blue in the darkness.

He jumped to his feet and started running towards it, Lynn and Halsey hot on his heels. He wasn’t wrong. There _was_ someone standing there. They watched as Gerard approached, fear twisting their features. Gerard wondered how he could see so much detail when it was obviously so dark in the forest. Before he could come up with an answer, he had finally reached the person.

“This forest is haunted,” he panted, leaning over and trying to catch his breath.

Lynn groaned, facepalming with an audible slap.

“I know you,” Gerard said, squinting at the person in front of him. “You’re Halsey.”

Colour-Halsey took a step back. “How do you know my name?” She blinked. “You’re Gerard, aren’t you?”

Gerard leaned against a nearby tree, trying to mask his exhaustion for casualness. It failed. “So you’ve heard of me?”

“You died,” Colour-Halsey blurted.

“I know.”

Colour-Halsey blinked, clearly not expecting this reaction.

Meanwhile, Grey-Halsey was frozen in shock. She was alive? But Tyler told her she was dead? She stared at the colour version of herself, unable to believe what she was seeing. But a small part of her was fascinated. She’d always wanted to know what she looked like – not in a mirror or in photographs – and she had to say, she was hot as fuck.

“Ask her if they know about Tyler,” Lynn told Gerard.  
Gerard repeated the question and Colour-Halsey frowned. “What do you mean? He’s sitting around the fire.”

Lynn staggered back a step. “Ask her to show us.” She turned to Gerard. “Ask her!”

Lynn was panicking and she knew it, but she had every right to. She’d literally been ripped apart last time she came across Tyler. Even though she apparently could heal very fast in death, she didn’t want to go through that again.

When Gerard asked, Halsey obliged, pointing to where Tyler used to be. She frowned when she couldn’t find him. “He was right there a minute ago.”

She watched as Gerard apparently started arguing with thin air. This was all so strange.

“You need to get as far away as possible from Tyler,” Gerard finally spoke to Colour-Halsey. “He’s dangerous.”

“Why should I believe you?” Halsey took a step back. “You’re just a black and white guy who died – who is lying dead right over there –” Colour-Halsey pointed down the beach. “Who is telling me to be afraid of someone who has made to hostile move towards anyone here?”

“He wants to kill us,” Gerard sputtered, trying to deal with Lynn screaming at him to get Colour-Halsey away from Tyler and Grey-Halsey wondering if she were really dead or if it were all a dream.

Colour-Halsey shook her head. “You’re already dead.”

And with that she walked away, leaving Gerard desperately wringing his hands. “What do we do now?”

Lynn was frantic. “You do what you have to do. Go in front of the survivors and tell them the danger.” She was scrunching her nose up; something Gerard had noticed was her nervous tick.

“But you said it wouldn’t be a good idea, what with me being dead and all,” Gerard said sarcastically.

“We don’t have the luxury of that choice anymore.” Lynn stared with wide eyes at Gerard. “Do you want your brother to die?”

Before he could respond, someone rushed past him roughly. Gerard staggered as the force of them knocked him back. It happened again and again and he was knocked to the ground. He wildly glanced at Halsey and Lynn who were staring in horror at the scene in front of them.

Gerard peeked his head up and saw white shapes dashing around the camp. Colour people were screaming and trying to move away, but the white figures were faster. It became clear that the white figures were grabbing people and pulling them into the undergrowth.

Gerard watched in horror as a white shape came rushing towards him. He ducked out of the way and watched it leave, making eye contact with the person it held by the legs.

They stared at him in horror was they were hauled away into the darkness. Even after their eyes were gone, Gerard felt their fear burrowing into them.

As the screams from the beach died down as more people were taken into the dark, Gerard felt an unmistakeable guilt.

He felt like this was something he could have stopped.


	6. Well Cut Off My Legs and Call Me Stumpy!

Alex and Rian had been stumbling through the forest for hours. When the sun started setting, they started panicking. They needed to rest, but what if there were animals in the forest? And both of them were starving. As the last rays of light left the forest, Alex sat down on the ground.

“What are you doing?” Rian’s voice was soaked in exhaustion and frustration.

“I don’t know what to tell ya, Rian,” Alex said, raking his sweaty hair out of his face. “I’m cold. I’m hungry. I’m really tired. Can’t we just hang here tonight?”

“What if there’s a tiger?”

Alex’s resolve crumbled slightly but he still didn’t get up off the ground.

“What if there’s a smoke monster that wants to kill another smoke monster because they’re siblings and have been caught in a cosmic battle for centuries?”

Alex gave Rian a steely side eye. “What are you talking about?”

Rian threw his arms up. “I dunno, man. Can we just keep going, please? There could be a plot development up ahead.”

Alex sighed and got to his feet. They continued walking for half an hour, Alex grumbling the whole time, until they came to a clearing.

Rian pointed triumphantly at what could be a building. “I told you there’d be plot!”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Shut up. We don’t even know what it is, it’s so dark.” He felt in his pockets for his phone, hoping there was enough battery left to use the flashlight function.

They warily approached it, the flimsy light illuminating the stony walls of the building.

Alex turned the light to his face. “These… are our ghost adventures.”

Rian ignored him. “Can you see a door?”

Alex looked around the building and saw a doorway. He cautiously stepped inside, his heard racing. This whole situation was becoming more and more real.

It was a single room, dirt floor, smaller inside than it looked on the outside, with a few broken pieces of wood scattered about. Alex stepped further inside as Rian hung back. Alex was drawn to a wall that had scratches on it. He traced his finger over the marks.

“It looks like a counter,” he called back to Rian. “There’s seven somethings. I wonder who was counting what?”

“Do you reckon we could sleep in there tonight?” Rian yawned.

“Dude have you ever seen a horror movie before?” Alex continued examining the room. “If we sleep in here we’re basically signing our own death certificate.”

Rian slapped his hands down at his sides. “What are we going to do, then?”

Alex walked from the room, joining Rian and looking out at the sky. They must have been on a hill of some kind because the great expanse of the night sky extended below their feet. There was zero light pollution and Alex couldn’t remember the last time he saw so many stars. He took a few steps forward, just now noticing the stars being reflected on what could either be a lake or the ocean. He pointed it out to Rian.

“We’ll check it out – ”

Before Rian could finish his sentence, a streak of light flew through the forest, converging on what they could now see was a beach. Probably twenty of the light things came through the forest and landed on the beach. The strange lights illuminated the scene, and both Rian and Alex felt sick to their stomachs with what they saw.

The lights were pulling people away. They were dragging them into the forest and rushing away with as much speed that they came with. There were other people on the beach, some trying to hit the lights with what could be sticks, and others were running into the ocean to get away from them.

Alex and Rian could hear the screaming.

“We have to get down there,” Alex got out, watching the last of the lights flow up and over a hill to their right. Then it was dark again.

The attack only lasted five minutes but the damage was done. In the darkness, they could still hear the screaming from the beach.

Rian caught Alex’s shoulder. “Running around in the dark with those things isn’t a good idea. I think hiding in the building is all we’ve got. At least we’ll be out of view.”

Alex had to admit it sounded like a good idea. They both went back to the building, ignoring their grumbling stomachs and trying to find a comfortable place on the dirt ground.

 

It wasn’t a massacre because there wasn’t any blood, but that didn’t mean the hole in the survivor’s morale wasn’t bleeding.

It was morning now, and the sun was beating down hard on them.

There were seventeen of them left. Ten people had been taken by those light things.

Dallon round everyone up and asked who was taken. Most notable missing were Hayley, Jack, Spencer, Pete, and Frank.

“Should we go looking for them?”

“What the hell took them?”

“Why did they take them?”

‘What if they come back?”

“Everyone shut up!” Patrick yelled. They did as he said. “Yes, we are very afraid right now – we have every right to be – but getting in a panic isn’t going to get our missing people back.”

“We can split into groups,” Dallon began. “One group can see if there’s any trace of the missing people, and the other can search for food and water. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

“Good idea. Who wants so volunteer for what?” Patrick waited for either a show of hands or someone speaking up. “You can also stay here and keep the fire going,” he added after there weren’t many volunteers.

“I’ll search for the missing,” Tyler piped up from the back of the group.

“Me too,” Josh joined in.

Tyler didn’t look at him.

“Thank you. Anyone else?”

“I’ll go with them,” Halsey smiled. “If you’re searching for something you’re gonna need a woman’s eyes.”

“Thank you for that… rather archaic reason.” Patrick glanced at Joe. “Joe and I will look for some food. Ray, Mikey, and Lynn, could you guys get water? Andy, could you show them where the lake is?”

They nodded their agreement and moved off into smaller groups. Dallon and Brendon approached Patrick. “What do you want us to do?” Brendon spoke for both of them.

No one knew why they were letting Patrick act the leader. He just had an air about him that he knew something more than he was letting on.

“Could you keep the fire lit with the others?” Patrick gestured to the remaining six survivors without set jobs. They were sitting a little way off, looking a lot more normal than their fellow musician survivors.

Brendon laughed. “Sure. Maybe I’ll teach them rhythm guitar while I’m at it. Speaking of, has anyone found out instruments yet?”

“I think Andy said he and Hayley found a bag of equipment, but not actual instruments yet.” Patrick started to move away. “But I’ll keep an eye out.”

Joe waited for Patrick to come over to him. He wasn’t too sure why he and Patrick were on food duty but at least he didn’t have to wait around here like Brendon and Dallon.

He remembered the previous night’s attack. He was so close to being taken. The white thing had hovered over him and he was so terrified he couldn’t move. But then Pete hobbled over from where he was laying and drew the attention away from Joe. He felt guilty yet grateful.

“You ready to go?” he asked Patrick when he approached. “Are you going to be fine with that staff, Gandalf?”

“I’ll be fine,” Patrick said with a wry smile. “I’ve seen that I’ve been through worse.”

 

Kenny had left the cabin just before dusk to get some food. He found these little red berries that made him pass out as soon as they hit his stomach. It was only by the grace of God that he wasn’t harmed, sleeping out there in the middle of an old track.

When he woke up it was morning, and he noticed the graze on his leg was healed. His arm also wasn’t visibly broken anymore and the callouses were gone from his fingers.

And that pissed him off, more than anything else.

He grabbed a handful of the berries and looked at them. They clearly weren’t poisonous because he was still alive.

He grabbed a stick and scratched his arm, hard enough to draw blood but not hard enough to cause any real damage. He knew it was probably a dumb thing to do, but he ate another berry. Ten seconds after swallowing, he was still conscious. He waited a minute. And another one, just to be sure. He looked at his arm and saw the scratch wasn’t healed.

It became clear to him that the berries only worked the first time, and for some reason their healing abilities knocked you out.

Either that, or he was going mad.

Maybe both.

He made his way back to the cabin he found and froze when he saw someone’s foot sticking out of the doorway. He backed up as silently as he could, returning to the forest. He wrenched a stick from a branch and was pleased when the end looked slightly lethal.

He approached the cabin again, stick raised, ready to defend himself. He kicked at the foot that stuck out. “Who are you?” he yelled.

He heard someone groan and he kicked the foot again. “I’m not afraid to hurt you!”

The foot moved and a tallish guy with blue hair walked out, looking terrified out of his mind. That caused Kenny to lower the stick. “Who are you?”

“I’m Alex and this is Rian. We crashed here on this island in a plane and we’re tying to get to the beach where other survivors are,” Alex pointed over Kenny’s shoulder. His arm was shaking.

Kenny dropped the stick. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God! I was on the plane, too!”

Alex stared incredulously. “Then why the hell are you threatening to hurt us!”

Kenny smiled apologetically. “I’m so sorry about that. But it’s really clear we’re not alone on the island, don’t you think?”

“Um, no?”

Kenny pointed at the cabin. “Who do you think made this? I found an old path back there that someone’s been walking on at least a week ago. I’ve got no way of knowing who is hostile and who isn’t.”

“So you come up here threatening to stab someone?” Alex said, only half meaning it.

“If it came down to it, it’s kill or be killed.” Kenny said with a flat face.

Alex thought this guy was hard-core. He didn’t say anything. It would be better to have this guy as a friend. And he seemed pretty smart, so that was a plus.

“Do you have food?” Rian asked.

“Are you hurt?”

“Uh, not really,” Rian replied, brow furrowing.

“I found these berries that knock you out but heal anything that’s wrong with you. I landed on a tree when I got here and my arm was all out of shape, and when I ate the berries and woke up, I was completely healed.”

Alex pointed to his arm. “You’ve got a scratch.”

“They only work once,” Kenny continued. “I ate another berry when I woke up and they didn’t do anything.”

“So you don’t really have any food, then?” Rian said, dismayed.

Kenny smiled apologetically. “So what do you think of the cabin?”

“It’s… run down as fuck, but it worked for the night.” Rian stretched his sore back. “I would have preferred not to sleep on the dirt, but I’ll take what I can get.”

‘Why is it so small on the inside?” Alex asked Kenny. Kenny had to know. He seemed to know everything.

“I think these are false walls.” Kenny walked into the room. “There’s a hole here, but it’s black inside.” He stuck his finger into a small hole in the wall. “Maybe the people who made this wanted to hide something.”

Alex felt a chill run up his spine. “Should we try to pull it down, see if there’s something inside?”

Kenny approached him. “And what if they’re still here? We’re on _their_ island. If it came to a fight over their home, they would win.”

Alex gulped.

“So, uh,” Rian said, drawing Kenny’s attention away from Alex. “Do you want to come with us to the beach?”

“Hopefully I’ll find my friends there,” Kenny responded.

“We saw some weird stuff last night,” Rian began when they set off. “These streaks of light came out from the forest. They pulled people away with them.”

“We could hear the screaming,” Alex added in a whisper.

Kenny kept his head down, concentrating on where he placed his feet. “Where do you think they came from?”

“It was like they came out of no where.”

“We’ll ask the people on the beach when we get there,” Kenny suggested.

Alex thought he heard something in the tress behind them, but he ignored it.

It couldn’t be that bass again, could it?

 

Zack didn’t know where he was. It was dark. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs and he was afraid, so afraid. He tried to move around but it wasn’t working. His body felt strange, like after you pass out and it feels like your body isn’t complete.

He couldn’t remember what happened after that weird guy spoke to him when he was under the log. Maybe it was a figment of his imagination.

There was a noise about ten feet from him and he blindly glanced in that direction.

Suddenly, a patch of bright light appeared, like someone had opened the door. He felt a stabbing pain in his eyes and squinted, trying to make sense of the blurry shapes. Finally his eyes got better and he could see what was happening.

Several people were people were being shoved into the dark space. They were crying and upset, but whatever it was got them into the room. Zack thought he recognised one of them.

“Jack?” he called out, voice slightly hoarse.

Jack’s head snapped up and his eyes widened in shock when he saw Zack. “Dude you’re oka –” He stopped speaking when he took in Zack’s body.

“What?” Zack glanced down at his body.

The light shut off and left the people in the dark, but Zack had seen it. His arms and legs were cut off, leaving only stumps in their place.

Zack started screaming, and he didn’t think he would ever stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe


	7. The Squad's All Here!

He was Tyler but he was not Tyler. He couldn’t see properly. Everything was blurry and it was frustrating. He looked at his arms and his limbs were blurry too.

So he supposed he should be called Blurry, because that’s how he saw himself. He was what he described as a Mirror. Every person alive has two personalities. One that they show people, and the other they see in the mirror. When a person dies, their Mirror is set free. Blurry was the Mirror of Tyler, and Blurry despised it.

Fury didn’t describe what he was feeling. He felt like his skin might bubble off from all the rage it suppressed. With every tree he passed he wanted to sink his fingers into it, rip it apart and scream. He wanted to hurt something, _someone_.

How he got here was actually a funny story. His previous skin had tried to stay alive, had tried to stop this anger from being released.

But he had failed.

Although that thought filled him with glee, his rage impossibly spiked and he punched a tree, screaming as it fell. His cry was pitched down for some reason, and it almost sounded like a bass guitar.

He hated his previous skin. _Tyler_. He thought the name with contempt. Tyler had tried to keep him locked away. Because Tyler knew what Blurry was capable of. He knew what Blurry could and would do.

Because this wasn’t the first time he’d failed.

Blurry sunk to his knees, using his fingers to thrash away the dirt in front of him. He was so consumed by the rage he needed to destroy something.

Ah yes, this wasn’t the first time Tyler had failed. Blurry grinned. It had to be the eighth time, now. Eight times the plane crashed. Eight times had Tyler been on this island. The seventh time Tyler successfully stopped Blurry from coming forward. Somehow Tyler survived the crash. Just the thought made a scream rip through Blurry’s lips. Tyler had _survived_ , and had managed to continue to survive as Blurry fought inside him.

This island made Blurry strong, so Tyler had eventually lost the fight. Blurry literally exploded from Tyler’s body, coated in the blood, crying out in happiness.

Then he slaughtered everyone on the island. And because he wanted to have more fun, he turned back time so he could come back and kill Tyler again. He’d done that every other time they’d been here. It was just so much fun!

This eighth time, Blurry was planning on escaping the island and finding more people to infect, more people to kill.

Just thinking of the outside world made Blurry spiral into a high fury.

Because the one thing people had that Blurry didn’t was colour.

He _longed_ for the colour of blood, longed to see the grey matter of a crushed cranium. He felt the longing in his bones and he got to his feet and started running again.

How was it fair that they got colour and he didn’t? They didn’t deserve it.

He was going to make them pay. His vision bubbled around him and he almost hit a tree. He stopped, chest heaving, waiting for his vision to get back to normal. Whatever that was. There was no normal here.

He heard a noise and his head snapped around like the predator he was. He walked forward, approaching a large log. Suddenly his world tipped upside down and he had to brace himself against the log. He sat down on it, feeling like his consciousness was floating up from his body.

It only infuriated him more.

Before he knew what he was doing, he bleated out “Help.” It was such a pathetic reminder of the skin he had used to be in that he made a mental note to rip out his voice box later.

A person appeared on front of him. She was drained of colour, and Blurry was fascinated. He instantly knew she was a Mirror.

“Are you okay?” she asked, taking a small step forward.

Blurry started swaying. In all the time he’d spent on the island, he’d never seen a person in black and white. In all the death he’d caused on this island, he’d never seen a Mirror before. What was different this time? He recognised this woman. His first skin had seen her when they boarded the plane. Blurry’s mind was working hard, and he finally came up with a solution.

If Tyler was getting stronger at controlling Blurry (evident from the seventh visit to the island) then he might even be able to control how other people’s Mirrors manifested. What if this girl has a body of herself lying on the beach? What if there are other survivors of the crash? His heart started jackhammering in his chest. The survivors have the colour. They’ve taken the Mirrors colour and in doing so have personally challenged him.

With all the rage inside him, Blurry couldn’t stop the words from coming out. “We have to kill the survivors. They took all the colour in the world and now we have none.”

Blurry moved so quickly from his seat that he felt like he’d disappeared. He was running again, cursing Tyler, cursing the survivors, and cursing the living and their colour. But he also cursed himself and his inability to stop talking.

Tyler may hate Blurry, but no one hated Blurry more than Blurry did.

As he was running, he almost fell over another girl. She screamed, and the sound tipped Blurry over the edge.

He leapt onto her, slashing her face with his fingers. He started screaming in her face and she screamed back as he continued to disfigure her.

He heard someone say something behind him but he ignored them. Suddenly he was pulled away from the screaming woman. He looked down at his hands and howled.

He showed them to the person who had pulled him away. “The blood,” he shrieked, hands shaking. “Not even the blood has colour!” He dragged his fingers down his face, wanting to rip the skin off. “This is their fault! We have to get the colour back!”

He jumped onto the first woman, tearing into her stomach. She screamed at him and he screamed back when he saw her body didn’t have any colour inside it either. He slashed at her organs, feeling like he was going to explode with the anger.

And then something crashed into his head and he fell off, writing into the ground.

“Who the hell are you?” someone screamed.

Blurry couldn’t see anything, and he also couldn’t help his verbal vomit. “I was the first one to die! I’m Tyler! No I’m not, not anymore! I care, I CARE!” He screamed again, frustrated with himself.

Then suddenly a branch was sticking out of his shoulder. It went clean through him and into the ground and he was somewhat trapped. His consciousness spiralled away and there was nothing he could do about it.

 

When he came back to his body, he didn’t know where he was. His vision had gone back to normal, and there wasn’t a branch in his shoulder anymore. He sill felt the anger, but it didn’t want to take over as it had before.

He got to his feet and surveyed the area. Bamboo was sticking up out of the ground around him, and he couldn’t remember this place from the other times he’d been on the island. He looked down and saw his hands were still covered in the black blood. He reached up and curled a hand around his throat, considering ripping out his voice box. He decided against it when he heard a noise. It sounded like a cry for help.

He walked towards the noise, not knowing what to expect.

When he saw what it was, he couldn’t have been happier.

A Colour, trapped under a log. The man stared at him in fear. Blurry approached him, a sick smile creeping over his features. He crouched over the trapped man’s head.

“We’re gonna have some fun with you,” he whispered with a smile. “What’s your name?”

“Zack,” the man responded, unsure of himself.

“Nice to meet you, Zack. I’m probably the worst thing to happen to you.”

Zack frowned in confusion as Blurry wrapped his hands around Zack’s.

“I’m happy to say this is going to hurt a lot,” Blurry said with a smile.

And with that, he pulled on Zack’s arms, loving the pop as his arms were ripped out of their sockets.

 

He managed to find a cave to store Zack in. Zack had been screaming for a long time until finally, Blurry knocked him out because he was sick of the sound. Blurry had ripped off his arms and legs so he couldn’t escape. It was then that Blurry discovered that he could stop people from bleeding. He just pressed his black hands to the bloody mess that was the remainder of Zack’s arm and the bleeding stopped.

At least that meant when he got a hold of Tyler, he could stop him from dying and keep inflicting pain upon him.

Maybe he’d even do it to Josh. That’d hurt Tyler more than a physical wound would.

After Blurry had finished moving a boulder over the entrance to the cave, he heard a noise. 

He followed the sound and saw a girl standing there. She was in black and white too, and she looked terrified.

When she saw him her eyes widened. “What’s happening to me?” Her voice was thick with tears.

Instead of acting out of rage, Blurry formulated a plan quickly. “I’m sorry, but you’re dead.” He struggled to stop his voice from being as pitched down as it normally is. It still sounded too deep for a normal human, but the scared girl didn’t say anything about it.

“What… Why?”

He approached her, glee rising in his stomach when she didn’t shy away. Maybe this plan was a good one. He put his hand on her shoulder. She eyed the black. “We were in a plane crash. We almost survived but,” he looked away for effect. “someone killed us.”

The girl wiped away tears. “Why did they kill us?”

Blurry was smug. His plan was working. “Because they wanted the colour all to themselves.” Blurry thought some more. “The colour is our life. We get the colour back, we get our life back.”

The girl looked at him, waiting for him to go on. She was eating up all his lies. Blurry had her in the palm of his hand. That’s what death did to some people. Some people’s Mirrors were so lost that they clung to anything, even though their living selves would have called bullshit.

“We can get the colour back, though,” Blurry continued. “We can get back what is rightfully ours.”

“How?” the girl breathed.

Blurry smiled. “We pay them back.” He nodded at her. “We kill them.”

 

Blurry’s plan was this: collect as many Mirrors as possible. Then, when night fell, steal as many survivors from the beach as they could. He didn’t want to kill them just yet – he wanted to capture them and torture them as he had done to Zack. It made him feel alive, causing so much pain to a living human. It gave him hope that he could put Tyler through that pain. But he couldn’t get Tyler just yet. He wanted to save Tyler for last.

Blurry and the girl – who said her name was Hayley – had spied on the people on the beach. Blurry had instantly spotted Tyler who was talking to someone Blurry knew well. He wanted both Tyler and Josh dead. He wanted to do it slowly. He wanted to get high off their screams.

It was a struggle to stop himself from running from the trees and doing it right then and there.

He also noticed the two people he’d encountered before, except these people were in colour. He didn’t stick around to watch them, in case there was some way that they could recognise him if they saw him.

As he and Hayley crashed through the bush, looking for more Mirrors, Hayley tried to start a conversation.

“So how come your hands and neck are black?”

“I fought a Colour and their blood made my hands black.”

“Do you know why the plane crashed?”

“The Colours wanted to get us dead so they could made us devoid of colour.”

Blurry pushed aside a branch and saw two men standing near a tree. He smiled.

“Hey guys. I’m Blurry and this is Hayley. Care to come with us?”

 

As dusk fell, Blurry had gathered five Mirrors. Hayley, Brian, Alex, and two Icelandic Mirrors called Nanna and Raggi. It was a disappointing turnout, but Blurry guessed that the first women he’d come across had got to everyone else before him. He showed them the cave and they were shocked and even a little bit impressed.

“When we raid the beach,” Blurry began watching their wide eyes eat up every word he fed them. “You might see someone you know, or even yourself. That’s just the Colours trying to stop you from taking what is rightfully yours.”

“If you move fast enough,” Blurry continued, glancing at the sun, which was taking its sweet time to go down. “They can’t tell what you are. If you move fast enough, you’ll just look like a streak of light to them. And that’s what you want, because if they recognise you then they can easily try to trick you into seeing things their way.”

“How many do we need to take?” Nanna said in thickly accented English.

“At least ten,” Blurry said. “Now I know there’s only six of us, but I can compensate for that.”

Without saying anything, he split in two. The group gasped as they saw there was two Blurry’s now instead of one. Both Blurry’s smiled and they split again and suddenly there were four Blurry’s.

“They don’t stand a chance,” Hayley said in wonder.

The left most Blurry grinned. “Exactly. Let’s get to work.”

 

When the sun had set, the Mirrors and Blurry approached the beach. They were nervous, but Blurry gave them a little pep talk.

“They took our _colour_ away. They killed us!”

Hayley nodded in agreement. “Now we’re taking it back!”

Blurry grinned at her. “You’re exactly right. Let’s move!”

And with that, he split into four again, and they all rushed off.

It was exhilarating, running through the forest with these Mirrors. Getting them to believe his lies had been so much easier than he thought it would be, and now he could finally get revenge on Tyler.

When they landed on the beach, it was chaos. Blurry’s troops were doing as he had told them. Most of them had already collected a Colour and were making their way back to the cave. Three of Blurry’s splits had collected people and pulled them away.

Blurry was hunting for Tyler or Josh but couldn’t find them. He was growing more and more frustrated. Maybe Tyler had known this was going to happen. Blurry felt the rage boil up inside him and he knew he had to grab someone and leave, as he was the only Mirror left on the beach.

Blurry grabbed someone on his way out, not looking or caring who it was. He sped through the forest, making his way back to the cave. When he stopped, he noticed the person he grabbed was Colour-Hayley.

In his anger, he’d made a mistake.

“Open the cave!” he roared to the Mirrors and they did as he said.

With their light illuminating the small cave, they threw the Colours in and pulled the boulder back over, muffling the screams.

The Mirrors turned to Blurry, waiting for his next order.

He pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. He’d made a bad mistake bringing Colour-Hayley here, but he might be able to find a way out of it.

And he hadn’t seen Tyler. He felt rage bubble up inside him, and he didn’t stop himself from lashing out.


	8. Trip Advisor Review: '6/10, Could Do With Some Windows'

Tyler hadn’t wanted company on the trip. The fact that it was Josh made it even worse.

He knew where the lost people were – it would be where they’ve been the previous seven times – but now that he had company, he couldn’t just waltz over there. They’d ask questions he doesn’t want to answer. He could hear Halsey and Josh walking behind him, and he tried not to fixate too much on Josh’s voice.

It brought back too many memories.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” Halsey shoved her hands in her pockets.

“Shoot,” Josh answered.

“Have you… seen anyone else on the island?”

Josh frowned. “You mean other than the people from the crash?”

Halsey sighed. “Yeah. In the forest or whatever. Without… colour.”

As he walked, Tyler tilted his head slightly so he could catch their words without being obvious about it. A chill trembled down his spine.

“Weren’t Andy and Hayley saying something like that?” Josh wiped sweat from his brow. “But to answer your question, no, I have not. Have you?”

Hayley watched the ground in front of her for a moment. “Yeah.”

Tyler almost tripped over. “I’m fine,” he said, waving off Josh’s concerns. _Just please don’t touch me._

He had no idea what he was going to do. Should he go straight to where the lost people were? What if he ran into Blurry? Too much was happening at once and Tyler just wanted to hide from the world.

“So what – or who – did you see?” Josh asked.

“I think I saw Gerard.” Halsey barked out a laugh. “I can’t believe I forgot about it. I guess with the shock of the attack last night it just fell from my mind.” She shook her head. “Still. Weird shit, man.”

Josh’s eyes widened. “Did he say anything?”

“He knew my name, somehow.”

Tyler closed his eyes, letting his hand brush a tree as they passed t.

“And…” Halsey paused, eyes boring into Tyler’s back. “They asked about Tyler.”

Tyler stopped dead in his tracks. Josh almost ran into him. “What did he say about me?”

Hayley kept her distance. “He said you wanted to kill us.”

Tyler almost couldn’t control the sob that tried to escape. He couldn’t stop the wall from coming down. “Oh God, oh God.” He crumpled to the ground. “He’s free. Oh my God, he’s free.”

Josh squatted down beside him, resting his hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “Take a deep breath. What do you mean?”

Tyler shuddered out from underneath Josh’s touch. He recoiled away from him, feeling hot tears slide down his face. “Don’t you touch me.”

Josh got to his feet and frowned. What the hell was happening to Tyler? “Okay, I won’t touch you. That’s fine. But what do you mean? Who is he?”

“I tried to control him,” Tyler whispered, unable to stop the words from coming. “I tried too hard and changed too much stuff, and now he’s free and I don’t know if I can stop it again. Not again.”

Halsey grabbed Josh’s arm and tried to pull him away. She knew a breakdown when she saw one. She had no idea if his would be violent, but she’d rather be safe than sorry. “Was Gerard telling the truth?” She ignored how she was basically asking ‘ayy lmao so was the ghost of someone who for some reason was devoid of colour, were they telling the truth about you being a killer? Asking for a friend.’

“Yes, but no.” Tyler pressed his hand to his face. “It’s a half truth.”

Josh got down to Tyler’s level, pointedly leaving a few feet of distance between them. “Can you tell us the truth?”

“No.” Tyler looked up at them with glassy eyes. “Because what I thought was the truth doesn’t seem to be correct anymore.”

 

Frank was glad when Zack finally stopped screaming.

Not to say that he didn’t think Zack’s situation required silence. They were trapped in a tiny area, and Zack’s cries seemed that much louder.

They could just hear his ragged breathing now, and Jack’s attempts at consoling him. Any way you looked at it, it was a shitty situation.

The worst part of it was the darkness. You didn’t know whom you were standing near or whom you were talking to.

“So.” Frank broke the silence. “Who in here thinks we should put a bad review of this place on Trip Advisor?”

“Frank?” someone spoke up.

He thought he recognised that voice. “Is that… Spencer?”

“Yes!”

“Good to see you again. Well.” Frank paused. “Not that I can actually see you.”

Out of the darkness came Pete’s voice. “I’m here too, guys.”

Frank barked out a laugh. “As if we could forget.”

“I must’ve died and gone to hell if I’m with you guys,” Hayley said wryly.

Frank, Pete, and Spencer all cheered. “Welcome to the party, Hayley!”

“Hey,” Jack called out. “I think Zack’s passed out so please try to keep your voices down. I don’t want him to wake up and start screaming again.

They all were silent for a while. “What the hell happened out there?” Hayley finally asked.

“It was like something straight out of ‘Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture’,” Spencer said. He shifted a little where he was sitting. “Except they were violent and they took us.”

“I stopped them from getting Joe,” Pete mumbled.

“I’m standing up,” Frank warned.

He slowly got to his feet, hand above his head in case the ceiling was low. He took a smell step forward and kicked someone accidently. “Sorry,” he mumbled and he stepped over them. He made it to a wall and followed it around, looking for an opening.

The walls were completely smooth, except for one section that felt like a dip in the rock. It seemed promising. “Does anyone have a phone or a light source?” Frank asked, feeling silly that no one had asked for one before.

Someone’s face suddenly appeared in the darkness. They shone the light around and located Frank, who curtsied. He took the phone from them and shone it around, taking in everyone’s faces.

Zack indeed was passed out. He looked deathly pale, and his stumps for legs and arms made Frank’s stomach turn. Frank moved the light to Jack, who held his hand up to block the light from his eyes. Next, Frank looked at Pete. His leg looked like it was fighting his jeans.

“You gotta take them off,” Frank commented, and Pete looked up and grimaced. “Your leg is so swollen.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Pete confessed. “I guess I’d have to cut them off now.”

Frank didn’t know what to say. He finally focussed the light on the possible door, and saw it was probably a massive boulder.

“We could probably move this,” he murmured before asking for some help.

Everyone except Pete stood up and attempted pushing the rock. They felt it shift slightly and felt a pang of relief. Frank had placed the phone on the ground with the light facing up, so they could at least slightly see what they were doing.

Jack looked back at Zack and was startled to see he was staring with wide eyes. He shook his head and the stumps moved around like he was trying to get to his now non-existent feet.

“I can see light!” Frank grunted and the people pushed harder.

Zack shook his head. “I remember,” he whispered.

Jack frowned. “It’s okay. We’re getting out.”

“One more!” Frank yelled.

“You don’t want to be where he is,” Zack said, eyes welling with tears.

With a crash, the boulder fell away and the people were blinded by the sunlight. Jack watched as one of Zack’s arm stumps reached towards his face, almost like he was trying to cover his face.

Zack whispered, “We won’t survive this.”

 

Brendon was bored. The others had been gone for a couple of hours so he and Dallon had tried small talk with the other survivors. It didn’t go very well as the other people were kind of standoffish and didn’t want to talk to them.

“I mean, that’s just rude,” Brendon muttered, sticking his hands into the cool sand. “They remind me of my parents.” He put a hand on his hip and blocked his nose. In a nasal voice, he said, “Brendon, dear, are you sure you want to pursue music? Your father and I have high hopes for you in college.” He visibly deflates. “Who’s the millionaire now, _dad_.”

Dallon laughed at him. “C’mon, Brendon. I think they look nervous.”

Brendon scoffed. “Of what? We’re all survivors on this island and the least you could do it be nice. They’re no better than us.”

They continued to watch the waves crashing before them. Brendon sighed. “I’d be fine if I had my guitar. Where is my guitar?”

Dallon rolled his eyes. “This is the third time you’ve asked me that. I don’t know where it is.”

Brendon groaned and flopped back in the sand. “I’m so BORED.”

“I can see that.”

As Brendon lay on the sand, he looked at the forest behind him. The trees were swaying in a slight breeze and he had the feeling of being watched. His skin prickled and he suddenly got the urge to run. He closed his eyes and inhaled the salty air.

It suddenly became silent. Brendon opened his eyes slowly. The trees had stopped moving, and it seemed like even the waves had fallen silent. He sat up slowly, eyes widening, staring at the forest.

The pressure in the air was so thick. Something was going to happen, Brendon just knew it. He just didn’t know what.

Suddenly, Kenny burst through from the undergrowth. Brendon and Dallon just about jumped out of their skin. Two other guys followed Kenny, looking pretty scratched up and tired.

“Kenny!” Brendon cried, getting to his feet.

Dallon grinned. “I knew we’d find you.”

“Well, actually, I found you,” Kenny said with a wry smile. “What the hell happened last night?”

Dallon blinked. “How do you know?”

“We told him,” one of the new guys spoke up from behind Kenny.

“Is Jack or Zack here?” the one with blue hair said.

“I can answer both questions: last night, some weird white lights came to the beach and took ten of our people, Jack being one of them. We haven’t seen anyone called Zack, sorry.”

The new guys deflated, worry streaking their faces. Kenny introduced them.

“Is this everyone?” Kenny gestured at the other people sitting in a group a little way off. They didn’t even seem to care that some new people had appeared from the forest.

“No, they’re just mean,” Brendon said with a smirk. “The others are off getting food, water, and another group is looking for the stolen ones.

Dallon gave them a quick run down of who was here and the politics of the group before Kenny spilled what he had learned.

“As far as I can tell, there are other people here, other than us,” Kenny explained as they sat down on the sand. “At least in the last week or so. In the cabin we found, we think there’s a false wall. There could be something in there of interest.”

“Dude, you’re like Bear Grylls.” Brendon grinned.

Kenny returned the gesture. “If you know what to look for, it’s not too hard to see.”

“The other’s should be back soon,” Dallon commented.

They were all quiet for a while before Alex broke the silence. “How was Jack? Before he was taken by the freaky lights, I mean.”

“He uh, well, he was dead when we crashed.” Brendon brushed some sand off his leg. “But he was resuscitated.”

Alex and Rian looked shocked. “Who else is… dead?” Rian asked carefully.

“That we know of, Gerard died from blood loss. There could be bodies in the forest, or other survivors like you. We have no way of knowing,” Dallon said.

“I don’t want to sound like Captain Obvious, but have you tried your phones?” Alex asked.

“No reception. We have no idea where we are.” Brendon glanced back out to sea. “We have no idea if they know where we are.”

Alex was bone tired. He hadn’t really slept very well the previous night, what with the stress of the crash and the fact that he was sleeping on the ground. He studied the beach, finally noticing the lack of bags. “Where’s all the bags? And the plane?”

Brendon got to his feet suddenly. “Let’s go look for them!” He was almost bouncing on his feet. _Finally_ some stimulation. “Maybe I’ll find my guitar!”

Dallon rolled his eyes. He put on his best dad voice. “All right, Brendon, but don’t talk to any strangers.”

Brendon gave him the finger. He moved off down the beach with Alex and Rian. Kenny and Dallon were going to stay to keep the fire lit.

Dallon watched as they moved off down the beach. “And stay on the sidewalk!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for not updating for a while. I've been very busy and I'll aim for an update a week. Thanks for reading!


	9. Gotta Die Eight Times Just To Get It Right

They’d only been on the island for about twenty-four hours, and the humidity was killing Ray’s hair. It was sweaty, fluffy, and Ray was pretty sure it was housing its own eco system. He was absolutely going to cut it off when he found some scissors.

He found it easier to focus on arbitrary things like this when he was traipsing through the jungle with Lynn, Mikey, and Andy. Mikey was gravitating around him like a little moth to a flame. Ray didn’t know what to say to him. Clearly he was grieving for his brother, but Ray had no idea how to handle that. He’d shoved his emotions down when the plane crashed, because he believed if he started screaming for Gerard, he would never stop.

“It’s just through here,” Andy pointed, snapping Ray from his thoughts.

They entered the clearing, taking in the size of the lake. Ray saw the waterfall and made his way around the lake towards it.

“We should really follow the river that feeds into this for a while,” he called out to the others. “I watched a Man vs. Wild episode once and there was a dead sheep lying in the river that fed potential drinking water.”

Lynn scrunched up her face. She considered that if there was going to be any dead creature lying in the river, it was going to be a human body from the crash. Her heart sank and she volunteered to follow the river a little bit. She needed to try and find Brian and Alex.

“Thanks, Lynn. While we’ll be boiling the water anyway, it’s still a good idea to check.” Andy watched as Lynn carefully scaled the rock wall next to the waterfall.

Mikey noticed Andy kept glancing over at a tree like he was looking for something. “What are you looking at?”

Andy’s gaze flickered to Ray. Ray shook his head minutely. No way should Andy tell Mikey he’d seen his dead brother.

“The bush looks like an animal out of the corner of my eye,” Andy lied, turning his eyes to the lake. “Anyway, we need to collect the water.”

Ray procured a few battered water bottles from his bag. They’d managed to find some from the flight in the ocean. As they dunked the plastic in the water, Andy looked to the waterfall. Lynn should probably be back by now. She was only going to follow the river a couple of yards.

When the bottle was full, he put the lid on and started filling another. The hair on his arms was standing up and there was anticipation in the air. Andy ignored the feeling and concentrated on the water.

Just a little way off from the lake, Lynn had found something. It wasn’t a body, thank goodness, but a briefcase. She tried to open it but the locks were stuck. She picked it up and made her way back to the lake.

“Look what I found!” She held up the bag for the others to see. “It won’t open.”

When she was back with the group, she gave them a closer look.

“It was just lying there?” Ray sounded disbelieving.

“Actually, I stole it from a man in a three piece on his way to the office.” Lynn smiled. “It was just sitting there against a tree. Do you think it could have come from the plane?”

“It doesn’t look like it’s damaged from the fall,” Mikey pointed out. He looked at Ray. “Could it have been here when we arrived?”

“That would mean there’s someone else on the island.” Andy pursed his lips. “Or at least there used to be.”

Ray got to his feet. “I think we should head back and see what the others think.” He loaded the bottles of water into his bag. “Patrick seems to have the answer to everything. Maybe he’ll know.”

 

Patrick didn’t bother looking for food. He was walking as fast as he could towards the cave. Granted, with a sore leg and a staff, his fast walk wasn’t very fast, but he was still making progress.

Joe had originally tried talking with Patrick but after his attempts were returned with only grunts, he gave up. He could see Patrick was on a mission and he was desperate to know where. It was pretty easy to keep up with the little man so he could afford to take glances around the area, searching for food.

“Where are we going, Patrick,” Joe said, voice exasperated. He’d had enough.

Patrick stopped and leaned against a tree. As he waited to catch his breath, he studied Joe. His hair was twice its usual size and he didn’t look happy at all.

“We’re looking for food, remember?” Patrick said.

Joe rolled his eyes. “No, _I’m_ looking for food. _You’re_ searching for something else.”

Patrick felt a pang of guilt. He really shouldn’t hide things from his friend. “I’ll tell you when we get there, okay?”

“No, Patrick. Tell me now.”

Patrick glanced at the ground, stalling. “I know where the stolen people are.”

Joe furrowed his brow. “How?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Good thing we’ll probably be on this island for a while.”

Patrick sighed and started walking again. “I can’t tell you, Joe.”

Joe reached out a hand and spun him around. “You can’t tell me, your best friend of more than a decade who you started a band with. You really can’t tell me? I find that hard to believe.”

Patrick’s expression remained unchanged. “I really can’t tell you. I can’t see what would happen if I did.”

The rejection stung. Patrick and Joe were best friends and had trusted each other with loads of things over the years. The island had changed Patrick. Joe’s hand slipped off Patrick’s shoulder. He took a small step back and stared hard at the ground just in front of Patrick’s feet. “Keep going, then.”

 

Pete’s leg felt like it was going to burst. He was in so much pain he thought he was going to throw up.

After the others had managed to push the boulder free of the cave, they staggered out, breathing in the fresh air. They had to help Pete stand, and he couldn’t walk by himself. He needed to take off his pants but the only way that was happening was with scissors. He had to lean on Spencer and take short, hopping steps that sent stabs of pain through his body.

Jack and Frank were going to carry Zack, who had become almost catatonic when the light hit his face.

Hayley considered climbing a tree to see which way the beach was, but the trees around them didn’t look sturdy and the foliage was probably too thick to see through anyway.  She glanced up and saw the sun through a gap in the trees. It was rising and from that information, Hayley estimated they should travel left.

As Jack scooped Zack up under the shoulders, Zack’s head fell back and his glassy eyes locked with Jacks. Jack couldn’t imagine the agony Zack had been through. He did know that it was so much pain that Zack had retreated inside his mind.

As the group moved off and left the cave, they almost caught the sound of a bass being played too loudly. They wind carried the sound away, and they had no warning.

 

“It should be here,” Patrick repeated, pacing around the clearing.

Joe was sitting on the ground, check resting in one hand, watching as Patrick became more and more agitated. “What should be here?”

“The cave!” Patrick yelled, resting his hands on top of his head.

Patrick glanced around the clearing. There was a rock wall covered in ivy and just to the left of that were a few large pieces of rock, crumbling in the weather. This was not what Patrick had planned

He rushed forward to move the ivy away from the wall, hoping that there would be some clue as to where the lost people had gone. He ripped a piece away from the wall and finally saw it.

The cave had been deserted for what looked like years. Patrick got out his phone and lit up the small area with the feeble light. What he saw made him fall to his knees.

There were probably five skeletons lying on the dirt floor. One in the corner looked like it didn’t have any arms or legs. Joe glanced over Patrick’s shoulder and gasped.

“You better start talking right now, Patrick. How did you know this would be here?”

Patrick had tears in his eyes. “We can’t save them now.”

 

The first thing Brendon did was leave the relative safety of the beach and enter the forest.

Alex and Rian held back, unsure of whether they should follow him.

“C’mon guys!” Brendon called over his shoulder. “Let’s see if we can find our instruments!”

“Didn’t Dallon say to stay on the beach?” Rian called out awkwardly.

“He’s not my dad. Is he yours?” Brendon laughed at himself.

Alex sighed and followed after Brendon. “We should probably stop him from getting himself killed.”

Brendon was crashing through the undergrowth. He didn’t know which way he was headed but he was sure he was going to find something. Back on the plane, he had a feeling that something would go wrong, probably because this was the first flight he’d taken his all time favourite guitar on. He guessed that was just _asking_ for trouble.

“What instruments do you guys play?” he asked Rian and Alex.

“I’m on drums, and Alex is on guitar.” Rian answered for the both of them.

“Nice,” Brendon said absentmindedly.

He glanced up and noticed the branches a few feet to the left of him were broken, like something had fallen from the sky. He looked on the ground and saw some black lumps lying there, presumably instrument cases. They were partly covered by fallen branches and leaves, so only the necks of the bags could be seen. He pointed this out to the other guys.

Grinning, feeling glad that they’d found something so soon after leaving, he approached the black lumps. He grabbed the neck of one and pulled it forward, but it was a lot heavier than he expected. Alex and Rian helped move some of the branches, and when Brendon pulled again, he finally saw the bags.

He wished he’d stayed on the beach.

 

Kenny and Dallon had been alone on the beach for only half an hour before they heard yelling. The other survivors glanced further down the beach, some of them standing up in shock.

Dallon followed their gaze and stood up too. Alex, Rian, and Brendon were back, and it looked like they were carrying two bodies.

Dallon and Kenny rushed forward, hearts in their throats. Which body had they found now?

Brendon was visibly shaking. “We went off the beach and I thought we found the bags.” He placed a body on the ground. “But it was this.”

Both bodies were burned quite severely. If any of the other survivors had known them, it would be hard to identify them.

“What do we do?” Alex was refusing to look at the bodies. Back in the forest, he thought he’d identified the body as Zack’s. But on closer inspection, the body didn’t have the same tattoos as Zack.

Kenny had squatted down and was going through the bodies’ pockets to find any ID. He pulled out a wallet and flicked open to the drivers licence. “Alex Babinski.” He went through the pockets of the other body. “Brian Macdonnald.”

Dallon felt his stomach drop. He was pretty sure Lynn had said those were her friends. He voiced this to the others. “How are we going to tell her?”

Kenny caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. “You better come up with it fast because she’s back now.”

They all glanced over and saw Lynn approaching them, and strangely, she was holding a silver briefcase. She sensed there was something weird about the other guys.

“What’s up?” she asked, frowning when Alex and Dallon closed ranks so she couldn’t see behind them. “Why are you acting so weird?” She let the briefcase plop onto the soft sand.

“We found something in the forest today, Lynn,” Brendon began.

Lynn narrowed her eyes. “And?”

Brendon handed her the wallets, hoping that she might piece it together. They didn’t want her to see the bodies straight away. They felt like she needed some warning first.

Lynn stared at the wallets; feeling like the earth was falling away at her feet. “What does this mean?” she whispered.

Dallon placed a hand on her back and stepped aside so she could see Alex and Brian lying on the sand. Her eyes seemed to go in and out of focus for a few moments before she gently placed the wallets in the sand by her dead friends feet. She took off her jacket and placed it over their heads.

She sat down next to them on the sand, and the others moved away from her, wanting to give privacy.

As the sun rose to its highest point in the sky, the faint sound of Lynn’s tearful singing could be heard across the beach.

It would be the eighth and final time.


	10. It's Not The Dharma Initiative Because That's Copyrighted Probably

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I've been gone for so long

They’d been on the island for a week, and after the flurry of activity in the first forty-eight hours, everything was relatively calm.

Well, as calm as you can be when no one’s come to your rescue and morale is fatally low.

Tyler hadn’t spoken to anyone since he, Josh, and Halsey came back from their fruitless trip to find the stolen survivors. He’d been diligently entering the forest and coming back with large quantities of food. No one knew where he got it all from. It was almost as if he’d been to the island before and knew its layout. The group never went hungry, so no one really pressed the matter.

Tyler hadn’t told Halsey and Josh what he meant in his breakdown in the forest. The weight of Tyler’s knowledge was burning a hole in his mind. He desperately wanted to talk to Josh about it, but there was no way he could do that. He’d sound insane. Hell, maybe he was.

When Joe and Patrick came back, there was a fracture between them. Joe was hurt that Patrick wouldn’t tell him what was on his mind. Surely after being friends for so long – surely if you considered each other brothers – they’d be able to talk about anything. Apparently not, and that stung.

Patrick thought the stolen survivors were dead. They had to be. He saw their skeletons in the cave. It was causing him a huge amount of stress and he was struggling to sleep at night. Wouldn’t you find it hard to sleep when the person with all the answers was sleeping several feet away? In all honesty, Patrick was too scared of Tyler to ask him for answers. Patrick knew what Tyler had done, and he didn’t want to be alone with him.

On the fourth day, they’d held a funeral. Dallon, Kenny, and Brendon had spent the whole of the third day digging graves in the sand. It was a nice place, with an overlook of the sea. It was almost like their fallen friends would be the first ones to see if any help came.

They’d found more bodies in the forest and a couple had washed ashore. All up, there were sixteen bodies that were buried that day. Lynn had cried quietly as her friends were lowered into the sand, and Mikey had dug his fingers so hard into his palm that he drew blood when Gerard was lowered in.

Even though that was a hefty death total, it still wasn’t the entire flight. There was some hope. There was no way the only survivors were on the beach.

Was there?

 

Gerard had completely combed the island without coming into contact with Blurry. It was almost like he’d disappeared from the face of the island.

But that wasn’t the weirdest part of it all. Gerard had found a laboratory on the highest point of the island. It was the last place he had to discover, and Lynn and Halsey were glum. They’d come to terms with their death. Well, as much as you can when you’re apparently ghosts and your body is still walking around on a beach. They’d had a few heated discussions about the existence of the soul. Were Lynn and Halsey the souls and the people on the beach just their bodies living?

Lynn had her money on them being the true soul, and the ones on the beach just empty meat suits. That’s exactly how she’s put it, and Gerard had cringed.

Halsey believed that they were a part of their personality that had lifted away when they died. She pointed out that she was meek in this existence, but her ‘beach form’, she coined the term, was her actual existence.

Gerard didn’t think either of them were right. Because he didn’t have a living body on the beach. He was dead, yet he could be seen by the survivors. It was too much to think about sometimes.

As they arrived at the laboratory, Gerard scratched his head. “So what’s the deal with this island?” He glanced at Halsey. “We’ve found so many pointers showing that someone must have lived here – there was that hut, the crumbling bricks which could possibly be from a house, this laboratory, and a hatch that we couldn’t get open.”

Lynn’s eye’s flashed. “Maybe there are more survivors in there.”

“We talked about that,” Halsey fiddled with her hair. She wanted to cut it short. “There’s no way anyone could get that thing open.”

As they approached the door of the building, Gerard felt his adrenalin spike. He didn’t quite know how that happened because his heart didn’t beat anymore, but he pushed that thought down. He placed his hand on the handle and was about to twist it when he saw signs of forced entry. He pointed it out to the girls.

“It looks like someone’s forced it open,” Lynn murmured, running her hands over the scratches in the door. “Survivors?”

Gerard twisted the handle but the door wouldn’t budge. He slammed his shoulder into the door and there was a little give. He glanced at Lynn with a smile. “Maybe. Someone’s blocked this door off.” He bashed the door again. “Help me get this thing open.”

 

When Frank heard the banging, he knew they were done for. After all they’d found in this place, the banging signified a change.

When they’d escaped the cave, something had come after them. It might have been the lights again, but he didn’t see. He was too occupied with running for his life, which was hard to do when he was carrying Zack. They’d all run so far, and by the time the realised where they were, there was no where else to run.

They’d made it to some kind of science building, and Hayley had scouted the perimeter as quickly as she could to see if any doors were open. She’d returned with a crowbar and suggested using it on the side door.

Jack had managed to open it, but he almost dropped the crowbar twice because he was so terrified.

Whatever the hell was chasing them sounded like a bass was being played way too loudly. As soon as Zack heard the noise he started struggling in their grip.

Spencer had helped Pete lean against the wall and rammed his shoulder into the stiff door, stumbling forward and almost falling when it finally flew open. Gathering Pete again, they all ran inside.

Hayley found a metal bookcase near the door and, using all her strength, she pushed it over so it was blocking the door. She thought it was sturdy enough to stop someone just waltzing right in. At least this way, if someone were trying to get in, they would have a warning.

They gathered in the staff rec room because it had chairs for Pete and Zack. Everyone sat down, breathing hard, trying to understand what’d happened to them.

Frank raised his head and took in the group. He smiled slightly. It looked like some kind of macabre staff meeting. “First things first –”

“Imma eat your brains,” Jack murmured. His headshot up when he realised what he’d said. “When I get stressed I make stupid references. Sorry.”

Frank continued. “First things first we look for food. There has to be something in here and I’m starving. Then we look for water. Then we look for some kind of communication. This place must have connections.” Frank opened a cupboard near the door half-heartedly but was surprised to find a box of flashlights. He handed them out to everyone, and was in awe when they all worked. Yet another thing for the list of ‘Freaky Shit That Shouldn’t Have Happened On The Isand.’

“I’ll stay here and look after Zack,” Pete said. He didn’t look very well at all.

“I’ll look for some scissors for you,” Spencer said as he got up from his seat. “If there’s a locker room, there might be some pants as well.”

Pete nodded and placed his forehead carefully down on the table. Spencer could hear his shaky breathing against the wood, so he knew he needed to find the stuff fast.

Frank found a kitchen. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years, so he had a hunch that the water probably wouldn’t be running. To delay the disappointment, he went through the cupboards. He closed the first door and was about to move on to the second one when he finally registered what he’d seen. He went back and wrenched the door open again, praying he wasn’t hallucinating.

He wasn’t. Stacks of food cans, layered upon each other. The labels were white with black writing, stating exactly what was in the can. There was also a symbol, like a circle made of multiple straight lines.

Frank grabbed a can of peaches and looked for an expiration date, but he couldn’t see one. That was good, right? He pulled the tab and opened the tin and dunked his hand into the juicy contents. He shoved a whole peach into his mouth and tried to stifle moans. He didn’t even like peaches but he felt like he’d never tasted something so sticky and sweet before. It was delicious.

Still munching on the peach, he opened up the rest of the cupboards. Every single one was filled with cans of food. Peaches, pears, peas, even a huge jar of mayonnaise. Frank was grinning. His group wasn’t going to go hungry for a very long time.

 

Meanwhile, Jack and Hayley were looking for a generator of some kind. There were so many lights in this place, there had to be a power source of some kind. When they found the basement, their hearts sunk.

“I’m not going in there.” Hayley planted her feet.

“A generator could be down there,” Jack reasoned, opening the door and staring into the black abyss that awaited them. “It’d be really cool to have power, don’t you think?”

“Have you ever seen a horror movie?” Hayley was exasperated. “Sure, a generator might be down there, but so is death and probably a bunch of zombies. Just like The Last Of Us.”

Jack rolled his eyes and took a step into the darkness. He tried to ignore how it felt like the dark was sucking him in. He turned his flashlight on and held it up to his face. “I’ll be Joel if you be Ellie.”

Hayley sighed and followed him into the darkness. “That doesn’t work because in the hotel basement level, Joel and Ellie were split up.”

They shone their lights around the surprisingly small basement. There wasn’t much in here except something covered by a large white sheet and some broken chairs. They approached the white sheet and glanced at each other.

“We’ve searched every nook and cranny of this place,” Jack began, hoping that the generator would be under the sheet.

“NOT EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY, JOHN!” Hayley yelled as she yanked off the sheet to reveal a generator.

The pair high fived.

 

Spencer had found some scissors, and now he was searching for a locker room. There must be some pants around here somewhere. After ten minutes of searching, Spencer finally found it.

There was only a small window in the room so the lighting was pretty terrible, but there was just enough light to see the outline of probably four narrow lockers. He flicked his flashlight on and started searching through the lockers. There was nothing in the first three, and as he was moving on to the fourth, the bulb in his flashlight blew.

“Fuck,” he murmured to himself.

He opened the fourth and felt around inside it. He felt some material and squinted at it, trying to see what it was. He pulled it out and with a breath of relief, he saw it was pants.

He was about to close the door when the main lights flickered on. Spencer focussed on what was inside the locker door, and he almost fell over in shock.

 

Gerard slammed himself into the door again and managed to hold it open enough for Lynn so slip inside. He heard the screeching of metal and the door finally opened.

The three of them crept forward, unsure of what they were going to find. Following a corridor, they found themselves in a room with one wall completely covered in screens. The control panel below that looked so complex and Gerard was filled with the urge to press every button on there.

Gerard approached the panel, wondering if there was even power in this place. He tentatively reached out a finger and pressed a button. One of the screen flickered to life, and Gerard squinted at it. It looked like a group of people were huddling together, like they were hiding from something.

Gerard came closer, trying to see if he could recognise anyone in the grainy footage.

“Don’t move!” Someone shouted behind him, and Gerard froze. “Don’t touch anything. Move away from the console.”

 

Franks hands were shaking. He thought they were safe here in this place. They had power, running water, and enough food to last the group probably a year. It was the perfect place to hide out.

Unfortunately, there were no weapons. The only thing that could be used was a flare gun and the crowbar Hayley had found outside.

So when someone got into the building and walked right past the hiding group, Frank had grabbed the flare gun and silently followed them. Hayley beat Jack to the crowbar, stating in a hushed whisper that she wasn’t just going to sit around and wait to get killed.

So, with Hayley backing him up with the crowbar, Frank yelled out at the intruder. They froze and up their hands up. Frank couldn’t see if they had a weapon so that was a plus, at least.

“Turn around!” Frank yelled out, finger twitching on the trigger.

The intruder slowly turned around and stared Frank in the face. His eyes widened and he lowered the gun.

“Gerard?”

“Hey Frank.”

Hayley pushed forward. “You again?”

The gun clattered out of Frank’s hand.

 

Blurry was furious.

Nothing was going to plan. His first failure was allowing his prisoners to escape. His second mistake was not getting them back as they were running.

Now they were in the laboratory, and Blurry couldn’t go back there.

He was becoming weaker. He needed to get off the island.

But the longer he waited, the more the survivors found out, and the harder it would be for him to leave.

Breathing heavily, he finally decided on one goal.

Tyler knew as much as Blurry did. Tyler knew what had to happen to stop this cycle and end Blurry. Tyler was with Patrick and their power was growing.

Tyler had to die.


	11. The One Before The One With The Answers

Jack didn’t know what was going on with the others. Hayley had grabbed the crowbar before he could, so he had to stay behind with Zack and Pete.

He was crouched beside the doorframe, occasionally peeking out down the corridor, trying to catch a glimpse of any action. When Hayley had left the room, Jack had furiously searched for anything he could use as a weapon, but the only thing he came back with was one of those wooden paper towel holders.

He clutched the thing tightly in his hands, knowing that it was a pretty flimsy weapon. If he had to use it, he reasoned, one quick hit from it would startle the attacker and give him enough time to either get a punch in or run. He glanced back at Zack and Pete.

Pete was breathing raggedly, head still pressed to the table. Jack guessed his leg was infected. His gaze flickered to Zack, who was slumped in his chair. He was staring at the wall, almost unblinkingly. The sight sent shivers down Jack’s spine. It was distressing to see his friend damaged like this, both physically and mentally. Jack wished he could help but he was no psychologist.

With all that being said, running was out of the question, not that Jack had entertained the idea for long. He’d have to fight for his broken friends. He’d only punched someone once before. They were drunk at a bar, trying to pick a fight with Alex.

Jack smiled at the memory of the drunk saying ‘square up, motherfucker. Let’s see if your punches are as strong as your eyebrows.’

Jack heard a sound in the hallway, and he almost dropped the object he was holding in fright. He quietly stood up, holding the wooden thing like a baseball bat. He hyped himself up in his mind, refusing to let fear take hold. He heard the footsteps come closer to the door, and he was almost looking forward to swinging. Jack was so hyped, in fact, that when Spencer turned into the room, Jack swung at him before looking to see who it was.

Thankfully, Spencer ducked in time, and Jack almost fell over with the strength of his swing.

“What the fuck, man?” Spencer hissed, knocking the wooden thing out of Jack’s hands.

Jack stared at Spencer with wide eyes. “Oh god I’m so sorry.” He bent over and grabbed his weapon again. “I thought you were someone else.”

“At least you’re prepared to defend these guys,” Spencer said as he moved to the table Pete was resting on. “Look what I found.” He slapped some photos on the table for Jack to see.

As Jack picked up the first one, Spencer placed the medical kit he’d found in the locker along with a change of clothes for Pete on the table. He tapped Pete on the shoulder and heard a groaning in response.

Pete lifted his head from the table and tried to focus on Spencer’s face. Trouble was, there was about three Spencer’s and Pete didn’t know which was the real one. “I’m sick,” Pete mumbled.

“I know.” Spencer reached forward and pressed his hand to Pete’s forehead. He was startled at how hot he was. “I’m going to make you feel better, okay?”

Spencer reached into the medical kit and pulled out a small packet of crackers. He didn’t know why they were in there, but he was glad. He was going to give Pete some painkillers, but he needed food in his stomach for the pills to be absorbed properly. No expiry date meant they were okay to eat, right? He unwrapped a cracker and handed it to Pete.

“You have to eat these before the pills because otherwise they’ll destroy your stomach,” Spencer warned when Pete turned up his nose.

Reluctantly, Pete grabbed the food (it took him two goes to get it in his hand) and took a nibble. As he was doing this, Spencer looked back to Jack, who was flicking through the pictures with a shocked expression.

“Where did you find these?” Jack said quietly.

“Inside a locker.”

“Are they us?” Jack looked down at Spencer.

Spencer shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Jack was staring at the picture in his hand. It was taken at this science facility during its heyday. There were seven people in the picture, all in various poses. Trouble was, Jack recognised all of them.

Spencer, Dallon, Lynn, Jack, Patrick, Tyler, and Josh were all in the picture. Jack could see the beach behind them in the distance, water reflecting the sun like diamonds.

“What the fuck,” Jack whispered as the flicked to the next one.

It was of this very room. Jack and Lynn were the only people in the shot, Jack flipping off the camera and Lynn giving Jack bunny ears. Jack flipped to the next picture, his heart rate increasing.

This time it was just Tyler and Josh, deep in conversation, standing in a room with computer screens mounted on the wall. On the biggest one, there was a blue print of an aeroplane. Tyler was pointing at the nose of the plane, while Josh was pointing at the body.

The last picture had Patrick and Dallon writing in a thick book. It looked like a diary of some kind. Over Dallon’s shoulder, Jack could see the dim glow of the screens from the second picture. Jack flipped over the picture, hoping for an explanation. Written in red pen, and in what Jack quickly recognised was his own handwriting, was ‘eighth time’s the charm!’

Jack frowned. He flipped the picture back over. Were they searching for something? Now that he looked closer, he saw the dark circles etched beneath Patrick’s eyes, and the streaks of exhaustion on Dallon’s face. Whatever they were losing sleep over, they’d found it after eight tries.

Spencer looked back at Pete, who had finished the first cracker and had moved on to the second one. “Hungrier than you thought,” Spencer commented, handing Pete two little white pills and a bottle of water. “These’ll make you feel better.”

Pete swallowed down the pills and took a long swig of water. He was feeling a little bit better now, if not a little bit cold. He watched as Spencer gently placed his hands on Pete’s heel and slowly raised it so his foot was sitting in his lap. Waves of pain washed over Pete and he almost spat out the mouthful of cracker. His head was reeling as nausea swept over him.

Spencer saw Pete turn pale and he reached over without jostling Pete to grab a plastic bucket that must have been serving as a trash can. He handed it to Pete who clutched it greedily and took deep breaths. He was trying with all his might to keep the food and pills down. Spencer could see the determination on Pete’s fever ridden face.

“I’m going to cut your pants now,” Spencer warned, taking in how much Pete was trembling. This really wasn’t ideal. Spencer wasn’t a doctor and Pete looked really sick.

Carefully, Spencer grabbed the hem of Pete’s jeans. He snipped it away with the scissors, glancing up at Pete to see his reaction. Pete was staring down at the little cut in his pants, waiting for Spencer to continue.

Spencer started snipping, being careful to not touch Pete’s leg in case it hurt his leg. He got halfway up the calf when Pete started twitching. Spencer stopped, looking in concern at Pete.

Surprisingly, he was smiling. “I can feel the blood rushing to my ankle,” Pete said with a grin. “Hard core pins and needles.”

Spencer looked back down at the leg. He didn’t mention it was possibly infected blood. He continued snipping, and finally came to the break. It was fairly obvious, really, that the bone had broken through the skin and the only thing stopping it from popping out was the skinny jeans. And now Spencer had cut that support away.

The pain rushed to Pete’s head and there was nothing he could do to stop his stomach from emptying itself into the bucket. His whole body tensed as he was sick, causing more and more pain to pulse through his body. In between waves, Pete gasped for breath like a dying animal. You could visibly see how bent out of shape Pete’s leg was.

All through this, Spencer madly cut the jeans above the knee, grabbed a little bottle of alcohol and, gripping Pete’s foot so his leg wouldn’t fly out of his lap, poured it over the hole in his leg.

Pete screamed louder than he ever had in his life. Spencer grimaced as he held Pete’s foot, cringing when the bucket of vomit hit the floor and spilled its contents.

Pete’s leg jerked again, hard, and Spencer heard something click. Pete felt it too, because he changed from hysteric to stiff, shaking, and staring with pain filled eyes at the ceiling.

Spencer assumed the leg had righted itself, and he set to work putting a bandage around the wound. Pete continued to stare at the ceiling, fingers twitching. Spencer almost preferred the screaming than this strange state. It was almost like Zack, who hadn’t even responded to Pete’s screams.

Jack had observed this with horrified eyes. There was so much happening all at once. He hadn’t believed in reincarnation ten minutes ago, but now he sure as hell did. How else could he be in those pictures without any memory of them? He watched as Spencer fed Pete more pills to replace the one’s he’d thrown up.

Jack looked at the last picture again. He squinted at the diary Dallon and Patrick were writing in. Maybe they’d find answers in that.

 

Tyler and Blurry were connected, so when Blurry made the decision to kill Tyler, he knew about it instantly.

Tyler was lying in the sand, munching on an apple, when he felt the decision. He jerked up and dropped the apple. Everything went hollow as he stood up, horror flooding his veins. Before he knew what he was doing, he was staggering towards Josh.

He forced himself to stop. Josh couldn’t help him now. He spun slowly on the spot, desperately trying to come up with a plan. He saw Patrick, and suddenly it all made sense. Wasn’t it obvious? Patrick was the only one who knew.

Tyler lurched off towards Patrick, who was trying his best to ignore him as he approached.

It didn’t work, though. Tyler was there before Patrick could get up and walk away. He ignored the icy cold fingers of fear gripping his stomach and stood up. It made him feel safer.

“Patrick, can we talk please?” Tyler blurted. He looked really nervous.

Patrick glanced at Andy who was sitting near him. He looked concerned about how agitated Tyler was. “Sure. Let’s talk.”

Tyler fidgeted on the spot. “Privately?”

“You don’t want Josh there?” Patrick said, louder than he needed to. He still didn’t really want to be with Tyler alone.

“No,” Tyler hissed. “He doesn’t know me this time, remember?”

Patrick sighed and stepped forward. He guessed he couldn’t try to ignore it any more. Without waiting to see if Tyler was following him, Patrick strode forward into the forest. It was all going to come out now.

After five minutes of walking, until Patrick was sure that the others from the beach wouldn’t be able to hear them, the two men faced each other. Patrick studied Tyler’s face for a moment. He looked extremely nervous. As he should be, Patrick thought to himself. This whole thing was his fault.

“You really fucked up this time,” Patrick said, breaking the silence.

Tyler flinched. “I thought it would work this time.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I tried so hard to fix it.”

“It’s not fixed. It’s worse than it ever has been.”

Tyler pressed his hands to his eyes and tried to refrain from crying. He was so afraid, and so alone. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered.

“It’s unavoidable. I don’t know why we didn’t see it before.” Patrick watched as Tyler’s shoulders heaved silently, watched the beaten down man wipe tears from his eyes. Patrick stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

A thought struck Tyler so suddenly he staggered back. “Gerard.”

Confusion flashed in Patrick’s eyes before he understood what Tyler was saying. “Gerard can be seen by both survivors and Ghosts.”

Tyler felt his heart fly with building hope. “We could use him.”

“How are we meant to find him?”

“I have a feeling he’d be at the observatory.” Tyler glanced up at the sky through the foliage. A storm was coming. “He always ends up there.”

The two of them started moving off. “We need to stop by the hut before we get to the building. I think we can finally tear down that false wall.”

 They weren’t planning on telling the others about all of this. Besides, if everything went to plan, no one would remember this at all.

That’s why, when Josh stepped out in front of them, they didn’t know what to say.

 

Frank lowered the flare gun and stared in disbelief at what was apparently his best friend.

Gerard was watching Frank’s reaction carefully. “Hi,” he finally said. The word seemed underwhelming in the grand scheme of things.

“You died.” Frank said bluntly.

“I know. I was there.”

Frank almost cracked a grin. “How are you here?”

“That’s a good question,” Gerard smiled slightly. He didn’t realise how much he’d wanted to see Frank again. “This island is really something.”

Hayley glanced at Frank. “I told you I saw him.” She looked at Gerard. “Do you know what’s going on here?”

“The only thing I know is that when you die, your ghost takes your place, and can’t be seen. But then if you’re resuscitated, your body comes back and your ghost stays too.”

Frank walked over and pressed his face into the wall. “THAT IS SUCH BULLSHIT.”

“I know. It’s almost like whoever is writing our shitty lives is coming up with really strange ideas and hoping no one will say anything,” Gerard said, his gaze flicking to a wall with a ‘can you believe this shit’ expression.

“What are you looking at?” Hayley followed his gaze.

Before Gerard could respond, they heard a scream coming from the hallway. Frank’s head snapped to attention and followed the sound. When they entered the room where the screams had come from, and almost bumped into Jack.

Jack was about to say hi to Frank when he saw Gerard. He opened his mouth to say something but Gerard waved him off.

Spencer looked up and called them over. “We need to plan our next move.”

“I’ll join you in a second,” Jack said as he left the room.

He was going to find that diary. He walked down the hallway and found himself in the room with screens on the wall. It looked like a stereotypical science lab. Thankfully, there were only a few drawers in a desk, which were the only storage place in the room.

Praying to Jebus, he opened a drawer. Nothing but a couple of pens. He moved on to the next one and laughed at the condoms he found in there. He opened the last one, his hopes fading.

Sitting innocently in the middle of the drawer was the diary from the picture. Jack grabbed it from the drawer, thanking Jebus for allowing plot development, and scurried off back to the others.

 

 


	12. The One With The Answers

The first time the plane crashed on the island, everyone died instantly in the explosion. Blurry was alone on the island, left to stew in his fury. He was there for twenty-five days, and his fury had given him power. He didn’t have to walk anywhere. He just appeared where he wanted to be, but only on the island. Sure, he was finally free from Tyler, but he was so _bored_. He needed someone to touch, someone to _hurt_. On the twenty-fifth night, he screamed at the sky and wished to be elsewhere, even it if meant being with Tyler again.

And then it began.

The second time on the island, Tyler died, but his best friend, Josh, resuscitated him. When Tyler came back to life that first time, he knew Blurry had been released. He’d tried for so long to keep Blurry at bay. In the end, he hadn’t been strong enough, and now they were trapped on this island, completely at the mercy of Tyler’s demons. Tyler told the group of survivors straight away, but seeing as this was early on in the timeline, Tyler didn’t have the answers to questions they were asking.

Patrick and Josh were the only ones who didn’t ridicule him. On the fifth morning, they gathered together some supplies and headed out in search of Blurry. Patrick thought they could reason with him and get home, but Blurry wasn’t interested. Somehow he managed to be in two places at once, simultaneously slaughtering the people on the beach while talking to Tyler.

When the last heart on the beach stopped beating, Blurry lashed out and grabbed Tyler’s. Seeing the colour drain from Tyler’s face as he died sent pleasure coursing through Blurry’s veins. Blurry knew this was what he was born to do. He _adored_ hurting Tyler and he wanted to do it again and again. He realised he could, and so he did.

The third time, Blurry killed everyone but Tyler on the first day, and spent thirty days after that torturing him. His screams gave him pleasure, and he began fixating on how Tyler was in colour but Blurry was not.

The fourth time, Blurry tied Tyler up and made him watch as Blurry tortured Josh. It was hurting Tyler more to watch his friend be hurt, so Blurry came up with a plan. If he waited a while after the crash and allowed Tyler to strike up some friendships, it would be the ultimate blow to him to kill them all in front of him. So he restarted again.

The fifth time, Tyler was paranoid about Blurry. He’d expected him to come out straight away, but it’d been a month and they’d seen no sign of him. He finally talked to Patrick about it, and they agreed to search the island again, not for Blurry, but to see if there was anything they could use against him. Patrick pointed out that Blurry didn’t seem to be able to affect the island, just the people on it. So if they built something for their future selves (they had to allow for the fact that Blurry would restart again and again), then Blurry couldn’t touch it.

They made a little hut with false walls, knowing that one day they would need the secret space. As they continued exploring up the hill, they discovered a laboratory. They had no idea who built it, and when they explored inside, they realised everything they needed was in there.

Someone had rigged the island with explosives. Blurry couldn’t come back to an island if the island were destroyed.

The sixth time, Patrick had no previous memory of the island. Tyler knew they had to get to the laboratory but Patrick refused to come. He was almost afraid of Tyler, and then it clicked in Tyler’s head. Blurry had ‘fixed’ Patrick so he couldn’t destroy the island. Tyler and Josh walked to the hut they’d made with Patrick, and on the way, Tyler made a proposition.

Daniel Faraday, a professor at The Queens College, Oxford University, explained that when a consciousness travels back and forth through time, it needs a constant to latch on to. A constant is an object or person that exists in both periods of time that the traveller deeply cares about and could recognize. If a constant is not found, the oscillations between different times will become less and less frequent until the traveller is stuck in in the present, no matter how bad that present may be.

Tyler had come to the realisation that he himself was Blurry’s constant. He was the only reason Blurry had power in the first place. If it weren’t for his death, Blurry wouldn’t exist in the physical world. He’d just remain inside Tyler’s brain, spitting sentences of hatred at Tyler. And so, if Tyler is Blurry’s constant, then that must be why he is able to rewind time back to before the plane crash.

Tyler theorised that if he could create his own constant, he could stop Blurry from restarting again. He needed the power of a constant.

Tyler wanted Josh to be his constant.

Tyler wanted to rewind time, further than the plane crash, far enough back to ensure they could get some people on the island before them to create what he and Patrick had found in the laboratory.

Josh agreed, because he didn’t really have any choice. It was literally a choice of life and death.

Once Tyler had his consent, Tyler placed a note inside the false wall of the hut. He thought he saw something else inside the wall but he dismissed it. No one else could put stuff in there because only three people knew about it.

Right?

The seventh cycle began.

 

Patrick watched the plane crash from afar, hidden in the trees, waiting for the right moment to come forward. He watched as Josh sat up from where he was thrown into the sand. He watched as Josh realised what was happening and scrambled to his feet.

Patrick saw Tyler’s body lying a few feet away from Josh, and glanced away at Pete when Josh started compressions. Pete was staggering around in shock, looking for his band mates. Patrick wanted to come forward and help Pete – he was his friend after all, but not in this lifetime – but he had strict instructions to stick to.

If he fucked this up, they were all dead another six times over.

Somehow over the general screaming of the plane crash, Patrick heard Tyler’s first breath on the island. He waited a few moments for him to recover before leaving the trees and approaching them.

“You need to come with me,” Patrick said, speaking to both Tyler and Josh, but only looking at Tyler.

“Who are you?” Josh was incredulous. “There’s a plane crash happening right in front of you and you don’t even care?”

“Is it ready?” Tyler shakily got to his feet, leaning on Josh for support. He was never going to get used to this coming back to life thing. Hopefully this would be the last time.

Patrick nodded and started into the forest. He didn’t check to see if they were following him. If they didn’t, he was doing this without them. He’d waited long enough.

When they got to the base of the hill, Tyler needed a break. “I tried to stay alive,” he said, leaning against a tree. “I tried so hard but he was too strong.”

Patrick and Tyler had explained everything to Josh on the way, and Josh didn’t want to ask any more questions. He was afraid of what the answers might be.

“You’re dead either way,” Patrick said, not meeting Tyler’s eyes.

As they started moving again, Patrick considered telling Tyler all he knew. He knew how all this ended and it wasn’t in a happy way. He decided against it. If he told Tyler now, it would never end. This had to play out the way it would for them to escape.

When they arrived at the laboratory, everything was set up and ready to go. Before they went inside, Patrick demanded they take a picture of everyone. Josh thought it was a little weird but if Patrick wanted it this way, then they had to do it.

Spencer, Dallon, Lynn, and Jack emerged from the laboratory and lined up shoulder to shoulder, the sea shining like diamonds behind them. Patrick put the camera on a tripod and joined the picture.

Tyler couldn’t bring himself to smile when the camera clicked, and when they disbanded, he asked Patrick why he’d wanted the photo.

“It’s for us,” Patrick said as they walked inside. Dallon handed Patrick some other pictures and his gaze flickered nervously to Tyler. Patrick placed the wad of pictures in a desk draw. As he closed it, he said, “I guess you could say it’s to get people moving.”

Tyler hadn’t heard the last part. He was watching as Dallon tried to subtly hide a diary in another desk drawer. Something was going on here, something that Tyler didn’t know about. He closed his eyes for a moment and purposely let it go. He couldn’t get distracted now, not when the end was so close.

Tyler felt numb as he approached the desk, knowing full well the gravity of what he was about to do.

“As you can see here,” Patrick pointed to a map of the island on one of the many screens in front of them. “We’ve placed exactly thirty-five bombs in the island at different places. Press the button, and they’ll detonate.”

Tyler looked terrified. He didn’t know if this would even work. It was all theories with no certainties. He didn’t know if destroying this island would stop the plane crash. What if another island took its place?

Patrick watched the uncertainty in Tyler’s eyes. “You know that I see things. This is the way it has to be.”

Tyler’s eyes flicked to Patrick. “So this works? When I press this, the plane doesn’t crash?”

Patrick didn’t have a chance to respond because a flash of light blasted into the room.

Blurry was here.

The light zapped around the room in seemingly random ways, but when the light dimmed and Blurry stood there, a sadistic grin on his face, Tyler finally saw everything was planned.

Tyler and Blurry were the only ones left alive. As the light bounced around the room, it had destroyed everyone else standing there.

Tyler slowly glanced down at his feet and saw Josh’s body, his face burned to a crisp. He almost fell over right then, almost lost the strength to carry on. But he knew this would be their last chance, and in a move that surprised Blurry, he lunged forward and grabbed his neck.

The two of the toppled to the ground, grunting as they fought. Tyler still had a firm grip around Blurry’s throat and Blurry was growling, the vibration travelling into Tyler’s hand.

Tyler’s hands moved without his knowledge, and he watched as his free hand formed a fist and pounded itself into Blurry’s face, shattering his nose and spilling grey blood everywhere. Next, he shifted his hand on Blurry’s throat and felt his windpipe. He dug his fingernails hard into his skin, pressing harder and harder until he felt the skin break. He twisted his hand and ripped it away, effectively tearing out Blurry’s voice box and windpipe.

Blurry screamed, but the sound wasn’t human. It sounded like a bass being played too loudly, and Tyler was terrified of what he’d created.

Tyler finally got back control of himself and he staggered off Blurry and ran deeper into the building, cradling his aching hand in the other. He still heard the nonhuman screaming behind him.

He careened into a locker room and hid behind the far locker. He pressed his hand to his mouth and tried to quiet his breathing.

Josh was dead. The thought ripped a hole through his heart. You’d think after seeing it so many times, he’d get used to it. It was the opposite, actually. Every time he’d seen Josh die had been harder than the last. Josh was so important to Tyler’s survival; he didn’t know how much longer he could survive without him.

And then he realised.

Josh was always his constant. Even before he had agreed to it, he was Tyler’s constant. And that meant if Tyler somehow stopped himself from knowing Josh, it might change himself enough to stop being Blurry’s constant.

Tyler could hear Blurry coming down the corridor, so he didn’t have much time to decide. It was his only option, really. All he had to was change so drastically that Blurry couldn’t latch on.

He had to erase the most important person in his life.

No biggie.

 

Except, in the end, Tyler was wrong. When he tried to erase Josh, Blurry stopped him. Because Josh wasn’t just Tyler’s constant, he was Blurry’s too. Tyler had just made things one hundred times worse for himself.

Now there were no do overs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i disappeared lol


	13. This Fic is Alive, But At What Cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS i can't even apologise enough for being gone for so long. I'm back, but there's only one chapter to go.

In the end, this was the last day Tyler and Josh and Blurry and the rest of them would spend on the island.

The rest of the survivors on the beach, in the laboratory, even Patrick, were dead on their feet.

In the end, nothing could compete with Blurry. He was so filled with rage, so hell bent on destroying everything that he forgot that once he was human too. If you only want to bring death, how can you not be blinded by life?

Tyler was so sure that he had figured out how to stop Blurry. He was so tired of reliving the same scenario over and over again. He died every time the cycle began again. His friends were killed over and over again. He loved them all with his whole heart, and every time they died, it crippled him.

He was so exhausted by it all, some might say he gave up. Others would say he sacrificed himself to save the rest.

Don’t believe what they say. Tyler died because he was scared, and his fear killed everyone else too.

It was just a matter of time.

 

As this was the eighth and final time on the island, any mistake was permanent.

The first mistake was making Josh the constant. Josh was now forced to live and die in a battle between Tyler and Blurry until they all died a final time.

The second mistake was thinking they could save Josh in the first place.

 

Because in the end, the only person who could kill Blurry was Tyler.

 

The worst part of this was the hope the survivors held. Even as Jack’s heart stopped, he truly believed the answers were in the diary he held.

Frank spat in Blurry’s face before his brain exploded out the back of his skull.

Spencer defended Pete until his last breath, and when Spencer fell, Pete tried to escape. As soon as he put weight on his leg, the bone popped out of his skin and he was dead before he hit the ground, pain obliterating his whole being.

Brendon was goofing around on his guitar on the beach when he was decapitated, along with the rest of them.

The slaughter happened in sixteen minutes, and all who remained was Tyler, Josh, and Blurry.

 

Josh was confused about how he was suddenly in a white room, with two Tyler’s.

“Where are we?” he glanced around the brightly lit area.

One of the Tyler’s was crying silently he looked at Josh with such misery that Josh unconsciously stepped toward him to comfort him.

The other Tyler was shuddering, his skin blurring in the air around him. He was staring at Josh with such a fury that Josh felt the back of his skull warm.

“I’m finally going to finish it, Josh,” said Blurry as he took a step towards Josh.

Josh looked apprehensive. “Finish what? Why are there two of you?”

Tyler crumpled to the floor. He was filled with the agony of the deaths of his friends. He was horrified with himself, with how he tried to fix the situation, and horrified at how his demons had manifested and brought so much suffering into the world.

“I’m so sorry Josh,” he managed to get out between sobs.

“Sorry for what?” Josh’s gaze flickered between Blurry and Tyler.

Those would be his last words.

 

Blurry leaped on Josh with such a strength that Josh realised he wasn’t human.

Everything that happened next happened in 47 seconds, but to Tyler it seemed like hours.

Blurry punched Josh with such a force that his jaw gave way and his windpipe was filled with blood. He would never take a breath again.

Blurry plunged his hands into Josh’s stomach and ripped his small intestines out of him and threw them at Tyler.

Tyler was sobbing so hard he couldn’t breathe. He took in Josh’s flailing arms, the sounds human organs make when ripped from inside a human. He heard the gurgling as Josh tried and failed to inhale. He saw Josh’s eyes, filled with fear, start to flutter as his consciousness fell away.

 

Josh was remembering everything. Even as Blurry destroyed his body, he remembered Tyler and everything they’d been through. He remembered sleepless nights on a stuffy tour bus, hearing Tyler’s quiet gasps of fear as he repressed Blurry. He remembered caring for Tyler like a brother.

He remembered all this, and he forgave him for it.

As his vision tunnelled as his heart slowed, he forced his eyes to look at Tyler.

_I’ll see you in the next one._

 

When Josh was finally dead, Blurry got off his body and rubbed his blood through his hair. He smiled so wide the skin on his face split. He wanted to sing and dance, to celebrate all that he’d achieved, even though it had taken so long to get here.

His celebration was interrupted by the sound of sobbing. He looked down at Tyler, who was currently pressing his hands to his face and howling.

Blurry bent down so that his face was level with Tyler’s.

“I don’t know why you’re reacting like this.” Burry plonked down on the ground in front of Tyler, who cringed back when he did so. “I mean, you had to have known it would end like this.”

“Why,” was all Tyler could say. He felt like his heart had exploded in his chest. His eyes kept wandering over to Josh’s lifeless form.

Blurry’s grin grew impossibly larger. “C’mon Tyler, you must have figured it out by now.” He licked some blood from his fingers. “I do it because it’s fun. I can’t wait to do this to the rest of the world.”

Tyler realised something then. He realised how he could fix it all. Josh was both Tyler’s and Blurry’s constant. And now Josh was gone, Burry had nothing to connect himself to this world.

The answer was so simple, so blindingly obvious, that Tyler almost laughed out loud. The irony to this whole thing was that Tyler had restarted time over and over again to save Josh from Blurry, but the death of Josh meant Blurry could finally be stopped.

Josh was always meant to die.

As soon as Tyler realised this, Blurry blinked out of existence.

Tyler sighed in relief.

He was gone within a matter of seconds. He couldn’t wait to see Josh again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is almost here. It's time to let them rest.


End file.
